


Heal Thyself

by Allamarain



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, Oncoming blondes, Pete's World Torchwood, Swearing, a companion is not a pacifier, dark metacrisis ten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 16:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allamarain/pseuds/Allamarain
Summary: The Doctor left Rose in the parallel universe with his clone, full of blood and anger and revenge, with the expectation that Rose would make him better, just as she'd made him better.What if she wasn't able to do make him better? What if he was too full of rage that he was beyond her help?What if it should never have been put on her to begin with?Three regenerations later, The Time Lords send the Doctor to investigate a hole in space-time, one allegedly caused by a past self. Little does she know she's headed to confront more than one of her past mistakes.(Revised summary 11/24/19)





	1. Chapter 1

Rose barely noticed the car shutting itself off, staring into space. Her stomach was in knots. The dread she’d often felt coming home multiplied. She looked up at the concrete high-rise in front of her, its facade foreboding. The parking lot was half full, with people coming home from work. She ducked down slightly, hoping not to attract the attention of her neighbors, who would be wondering why she was sitting in the car for so long.

She couldn’t hide out there forever. She slowly stepped out of the car, pressing her thumb to pad on the door to lock it. She could do this.  
As she walked to the entrance, she rehearsed in her head what she was going to say:

_  
I’m tired of this. I’m so tired.  
Nothing we’ve tried has worked.  
I haven’t been happy in a long time.  
This is for the best.  
I’m sorry it had to come to this.  
You’re exhausting…_ No. She couldn’t say that. This was going to be hard enough on him already. She had to make it as easy on him as she could. He’d never been through this before, at least, not as a human.

How was he going to take it? Anger? Most definitely. Screaming? Likely. Throwing things? She hoped not. It rarely happened, and never _at_ her, but it was still unnerving. She’d asked Mum to come to town. She’d go to her suites afterwards. Give him some time to process and calm down. She’d packed a few changes of clothes in her gym bag, now sitting in her trunk, ready to run at a moment’s notice. And she wanted someone to be expecting her, and start poking around in case she didn’t show up..not that he would _do_ such a thing, but she’d seen the full extent of his anger, and it was as scary as any Dalek invasion. The lengthy rants, the bitterness that seemed to be creeping into him more and more.

_How did it get worse when it should have been gotten better? _ she wondered, as she had a thousand times before. It had been seven years. Seven years since they’d kissed on the beach in Norway. Seven years since they’d been left here by the Doctor. Six years since they’d been married. But as every year passed, he flew into more rages, had less patience, showed less kindness. John looked like the Doctor, had his voice, had his mannerisms, but seemed less and less like the Doctor all the time. Or maybe she just wasn’t remembering correctly.

The guilt gnawed at her like a dog on a bone. She was supposed to make him better. She’d failed. She’d loved him as much as she could, and it still wasn’t enough. She’d tried being patient when he’d he’d quit yet another project. She’d tried pointing out the positive in their lives. She’d given suggestions. They traveled on Earth-they’d visited forty countries together. Yet nothing replaced the restlessness, the weariness, the feelings of inadequacy. All she was accomplishing was making both of them miserable.

She walked through the tastefully decorated lobby, gave an absent-minded nod to the to the SecDrone, and pushed the button for the elevator. Doubt crept into her head. _He needs you. You’re all he has in this world. If he’s constantly angry now, what will this do to him?_. She shook her head.

As the elevator whizzed up to their penthouse flat she thought of how some people-devoutly religious types, mostly-thought divorce was “the easy way out”. She’d heard it both in her home universe and this one. Marriages were too disposable these days, didn’t mean anything. You got tired of your spouse and you dumped them and got a new one. That was all bullshit; the easy way out was to stay in an unhappy relationship. Suffer in silence, do what’s expected, don’t rock the boat. She’d worked harder at trying to save their relationship than she’d worked at anything else. It would be so easy to grit her teeth and deal with it. But she was coming home every night filled with dread, and she wouldn’t live like that.

Panic surged in her as the elevator doors opened and she walked down the hall. Everything she’d known was about to change.

“John?” she called as she walked through the door. “You around?” Maybe he’d gone out, though   
he didn’t do that much these days. She’d get a reprieve, for an hour or so.

“Yeah, back here!” he stepped out of the study. Gone were the pinstriped suits; he’d discarded them in favor of jeans and polo shirts. The only thing reminder of his previous life were the trainers. She’d never gotten used to the scraggly beard covered his face. “How was your day?”

“It was…all right, I guess.” She bit her lower lip. “How was yours? Do anything interesting?” The last word was added in haste, trying not to call attention to his recent indolence.

“Tinkered with a few things. Got an odd call from a man who wanted to discuss a business opportunity, something involving astrophysics. Very complicated. Could be interesting.”  
She nodded in tacit agreement.

“Well, I’m going to get back to my study, call me when dinner’s ready?” He turned to head back without getting an answer. 

She gulped. It was now or never. “Hey, do you have a minute, actually?”

He stopped, turning around slowly. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Why don’t we sit down?” He sat across from her at the mahogany dining room table, rarely used these days. They hadn’t had a dinner party, or any company besides her parents, for ages. She’d had too many evenings ruined by mood swings, her friends wide eyed, making flimsy excuses to leave.

His dark eyes peered into her, curious as always. His lips were in a thin line. The face of the man she’d loved-still loved, actually. But love was not enough.

“John,” she let out a breath. “We need to talk.”  
—

John put down his tea cup and looked at his phone. The man he was supposed to meet, Mr. Hofstader, was already five minutes late. He should have been more annoyed than he was, but in truth, he’d just as soon Hofstader not show up at all.

_Rose left_. The thought kept repeating over and over in his head, a steady rhythm in the background since last night when the door closed behind her. The only thing good in his life, the only thing he loved, gone. He’d tried talking her out of it. He’d always been good with words. But this time, he wasn’t good enough. The steely determination in her eyes, the stubbornness he’d always loved, had turned on him. She didn’t budge. After he’d slumped in his chair, wrung out from arguing, she’d packed a bag and left, saying something about calling in a few days and couples counseling. Why? What was the point? She was gone.

He yawned, and briefly considered taking a quick nap, but the purveyors of this coffee shop would probably think he was homeless and throw him out. He’d barely slept last night, instead alternating between staring at the bedroom ceiling and her empty side of the bed. He cursed his current form. He was nearly useless if he didn’t sleep at least six hours a night; it used to be he could get by with hardly sleeping at all.

That wasn’t him, though. Not really.

He looked disheveled, having slapped on a wrinkled dress shirt and khakis a few minutes before leaving.. Not the way to go into a business meeting, but if they wouldn’t accept him in this state, they didn’t have to accept him at all. He would have blown it off, entirely but now that Rose was gone, he was going to need to do something to keep him busy, something to fill the long hours of the days and nights without her. Speaking of which, that stupid human didn’t even have the courtesy to call to say he wasn’t coming. He’d finish his tea and be off.

“Doctor?” a posh accent asked. 

“Mr. Smith. I’m not a doctor. Never been to school.” He looked up and regarded the man standing before him. A large, forboding man in a three piece suit and dark slicked back hair. He carried himself with the rigidity and precision of a soldier, yet his face was warm, welcoming.

“Alfred Hofstader. Sorry I’m late, traffic was shit.” He sat down and pulled a business card from his overcoat, pushing it across the table. “Ceylon Technologies. Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t touch the card. “What is it you want?”

“We have an exciting opportunity for you. Something I think you’re going to be very interested in, and with astounding awards for you, Doctor.”

“Don’t call me that. I told you, I’m not-”

Hofstader continued, unfazed. “Oh, we know who you are. We’ve done extensive research, and we know where you came from, what you are, and that you’re capable of extraordinary things. We need you for an upcoming venture, something that’s going to change life on this planet.”

John sighed. “What, is this another app that’s allegedly going to disrupt some industry? Don’t care.” Truth be told, the app startups were fewer these days, but he’d heard the pitch way too many times. Businessmen were wholly unoriginal.

“This isn’t an app, or a mere household convenience. This is something huge. And you’re the only one that can help us.” Hofstader held John’s gaze.

“You mean him. Not me. I’m just a bloody human. Now if you don’t have anything else to say, I’m going to leave.” He reached for his coat.

“A human? Is that how you think of yourself?”

“It’s what I am.” 

“What if we could change that?”

He froze, coat half dangling off of him. “What do you mean?”

“Let me show you what we’ve discovered. This is Project Algernon.” Hofstader pulled out his laptop and showed him. Images, charts, schematics. “We don’t have all the pieces yet. Lacking some of the know-how. And that’s where you come in.”

John read through everything, entranced. It was clever, so very clever. They might be able to pull it off. For the first time in a long time, he felt a spark of hope. A lighthouse in a fog of despair.

“Do you have the license?” he asked.

“Pushing it through as we speak. Normally, it takes months, but my backers have friends in high places.” His voice was as smooth as velvet. “We want to get started as soon as possible.”

“What’s in it for them?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he smirked.

John weighed the options in his head. The nameless backers, whoever they were, were probably just as single-minded and small as Hofstader. But if this worked, he could keep them in check. He had ten lifetimes’ experience doing so.

Sort of.

He looked at the screen again and then at Hofstader, his lips curled in a smile not designed to be friendly, but coercive.

“When do we start?” he asked.


	2. Chapter 2

Ryan grinned as he heard the familiar groans of the TARDIS coming from the backyard. “She’s here!” he called to Graham. They'd spent the last week at home. It was great to relax, but he couldn't wait to be headed across the universe with the Doctor again. Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he grabbed the to go container with four Starbucks coffees, balancing them with one hand.

"Are you sure you can manage that?" Graham asked. "You should use two hands.”

"I'll be fine." He carefully opened the door with his free hand. Whenever possible, Ryan liked to prove dyspraxia wouldn't keep him from doing normal things. Admittedly, it had taken some time to master.

“Hey mates,” the Doctor greeted Ryan and Graham with her usual cheerfulness as they walked into the TARDIS. “You brought coffee? Thanks!”

Ryan handed her a cup from the holder. “Take _this one_. It’s decaf. Remember what happened last time you had regular coffee?”

She scrunched her nose. “For the last time, I’m sorry I got us kicked out of that museum. But I was having an important conversation.”

“Doctor, you were shouting at a statue.” he pointed out..

“Oi! I needed to make sure it wasn’t a Weeping Angel!” She sipped her coffee. “Got any sugar?”

“Here you are, Doc.” Graham handed her the bag. “Yaz is running a little late today. She worked last night and overslept. We thought the coffee would help her wake up.”

“Good thinking!” she smiled. “What have you been up to the last few days?”

“I’ve been trying to convince Granddad to get an Echo Dot.” Ryan said. “Have you seen those, Doctor? They can tell you the weather, play music, keep track of your schedule, everything! And you can automate things in your house. It’s great for when we’re not there!”

“And I told you, no! It’s too creepy, having microphones listening to you all the time. What kind of information are they gonna collect on us?” Graham retorted.

“You’re so paranoid.” Ryan rolled his eyes. “And because of that I’m stuck in the Stone Age.”

“A Stone Age where your house doesn’t try to kill you. All this home automation stuff gives me the creeps. Am I right about this, Doc?”

They both looked at her, expecting a final ruling. “Oh, virtual assistants are completely harmless…until the AI uprising of 2257. Gruesome time in Earth’s history.” She set down her coffee on the console, then walked towards them. “So what are we up for today?”

“Any good off planet beaches? I’m missing the summer weather.” Ryan said.

“I know of a great one! It’s in this galaxy too, right on the edge of….” She stopped, clutching a hand to her forehead.

“Doctor, are you okay?” Ryan was concerned.

“I’m fine, it’s just…how did the lights get so bright in here all of a sudden? I don’t remember changing the settings.”

“The lights are exactly the same.” Something was definitely wrong. She stepped back, reaching for the console, but her hand only finding air. “It must be…” her voice trailed off. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed to the floor.

“Doc!” Graham rushed to her side. He gently shook her. “Can you hear me? Wake up!”

Ryan’s first instinct was to panic, but then he remembered the basic first aid training Nan had drilled into him. You never know when you might need to help someone, she’d said. He knelt down next to her unconscious figure. He was relieved to see her chest rise and fall.

“She’s breathing.” He grabbed her wrist and felt for pulses. Two of them. They seemed rapid, but he had no idea what was normal for her. “Hearts are beating.” He looked over at Graham, kneeling across from him. “Did you notice if she hit her head on the console as she fell?”

“I don’t think so.” Graham frowned.

“Let’s find something to elevate her legs, just in case it was something with her hearts.” Ryan quickly looked around and settled on his backpack. He gently positioned it under her feet, hoping he was doing the right thing. _Please be okay_, he thought. He had no idea if human first aid was even relevant to Time Lords, but he had no idea what else to try.

“What do we do now?” Graham asked.

“How would I know? I don’t know anything about alien illnesses!” his voice was laced more with panic than annoyance. He tried to think of what they should do, but it felt like his head was blaring with alarm bells. “She seemed fine when we came in, right?”

“Yeah, completely.” Graham agreed.

Ryan looked her over for any other signs of illness, but nothing else was out of the ordinary. He felt her forehead. No fever. “Maybe she caught some kind of disease while she was off on her own.”

“What if someone tried to poison her?” Graham stood up and picked her coffee cup off the console. “She said she’s made a lot of enemies over the years.” He took the lid off and sniffed it.

“No! Don’t do that!” Ryan knocked the cup out of his hand, spilling coffee anywhere. “Maybe it’s smell activated!”

“_Smell activated?_ What is that?!”

Ryan paused, unsure of how to respond, then spat out: “Well, it does sound like something she’d say!” He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay, let’s think. The Doctor was fine, then she saw some bright lights, and she fainted."

”Maybe there’s something in the med bay that can help.” Graham pondered.

“I’ll take a look!” He sprung up and half jogged to the med bay. He’d only been in there once before, after getting a large laceration on his leg while outrunning Sontarans. While he’d been in too much pain then to get a good look around, the Doctor had mentioned she kept a lot of medicines on hand.

The med bay was similar to a clinic back on Earth: clean, sterile, minimalist. Cabinets and drawers lined the walls, and a single stainless steel table was in the center. He searched frantically through the drawers and cabinets, but it occurred to him while he was searching he didn’t even know what to look for. What kind of medication did you give an unconscious Time Lord?

When he returned to the console room, Yaz had arrived. She was at the console, pushing what appeared to be random buttons.

“I filled her in.” Graham told him. “Find anything?” 

He shook his head. “Yaz, what are you doing?”

“The Doctor’s always getting information from the TARDIS computer. Maybe I can find something.” She pecked at the keyboard.

“But it’s all in Gallifreyan.” He remarked.

“I know, but I’ve been trying to decipher it. I watch her while she types things in. I think this,” she pointed to a spot on the screen, “means ‘star’”

“How much do you know?” he asked.

“Umm..three words. Maybe.” she admitted.

“That’s not enough.” he snipped. “And you shouldn’t be poking around on there, Yaz. What if you cause the TARDIS to take off?”

“Well, what else do you suggest we do?!” she put her hands on her hips.

“I don’t know! We’ll think of something!” Normally when strange things happened, the Doctor was the one who took charge and figured them out. “Any change, Granddad?” he looked over to Graham, who was standing over her.

“Not that I can tell.” He said. “We should take her to hospital.”

“We can’t do that!” Yaz exclaimed. “If they realize she’s an alien, who knows what they’ll do to her?!”

“But if we don’t take her, she could die!” Graham argued. “What if she’s really sick and she needs help? Every minute we wait could be making her worse and worse.” His eyebrows went up. “What if it’s somethin’ contagious? We could all be infected!”

“All the more reason to stay here and not infect anyone else.” her eyes burned with determination. “Who knows what kind of alien disease we could be spreading?”

“Guys, guys, guys, be quiet.” Ryan jumped in. “Look, why don’t we wait? She doesn’t seem like she’s dying or nothin’ like that. Let’s just stay here and keep an eye on her. Remember when we first met her and she passed out? She woke up on her own. If she’s not better in a couple hours, we’ll take her to hospital.”

Yaz looked reluctant at the mention of hospital, but she slowly nodded. “All right.” She sat next to the Doctor and held her hand.

“I still think we should go now.” Graham grumbled. 

“A couple hours. Two.” Ryan held up two fingers.

“Okay, fine.” He finally relented. “But after that it’s straight to A&E.” He paced around the console room.

Ryan sat down next to the Doctor and across from Yaz. “You must have taken a proper first aid course, as part of your police training and all.” She quickly nodded. “Any suggestions of things we can do?”

“Nope. At this point, they always tell us to radio for an ambulance.” She sighed and looked down at the Doctor. “Doctor, what’s going on with you?”

—  
The white light gave way to colors. Blurry blobs of brown and green, moving like icebergs. Eventually a vague shape of purplish pink. The Doctor felt as if she were floating through space without a tether, endlessly, aimlessly. She couldn’t feel her body, much less see it. She tried speaking, breathing-nothing worked.

This was familiar somehow, a faint memory, a vague impression. But she couldn’t place it. What was going on? Where was she?

After what seemed like ages, an object came into focus. She was staring down at a table, made of polished black stone. She looked up and saw blurs of grey and brown. She blinked-she could do that, at least-and saw she was in some sort of chamber with grey walls. The room was bare except for the table, a chair, and the brown blur. The low ceiling glowed with a dim light.  
“Doctor? Have you arrived yet?” the blur asked.

She found herself slammed into sensation again. She was sitting in a chair, but still had no command of her limbs. She felt no pain, but a tingle in the back of her head-a feeling long dormant. The presence of another Time Lord. _There must be another Time Lord here. Is something kidnapping us?_

“Who are you?” she spat out. “What do you want with us?”

“Us?” The blur sharpened, and she saw a man in a brown robe, mostly bald and wearing glasses. “It’s just you and me here. We need to have a chat, Doctor. It’s of the utmost importance.”

“I’m not tellin’ you anything until I find out who you are and where I am.” She gave him an intense glare.

“I can easily answer those questions-with this.” He approached her, reaching into his pocket. She stiffened as he approached. He pulled out a pendant and set it on the table. She gasped at the familiar design.

“The seal of Rassilon.” She looked up. “You’re a Time Lord.”

“Correct.” He smiled. “Welcome back to Gallifrey.”


	3. Chapter 3

“But how am I here?” she protested. “And why am I here? If this is about the last time, I promise you I don’t know where the stolen TARDIS is. Err, borrowed TARDIS. Clara has it and she could be anywhere.”

“First questions first. You’re not _actually_ here, this is a telepathic projection of my office.”

“Ohhh, that’s why I can’t move!” It was starting to make sense. She’d rarely used a telepathic projection herself, as they required a great deal of concentration and mental energy. Even though that was one big question answered, her apprehension remained. Why were the Time Lords contacting her now?

“Yes. The functionality should return shortly.”

“So is that was this is for? Is the High Council going to reprimand me for running off?”

“Doctor, you know as well as anyone the Time Lords aren’t some homogenous group with a single agenda. Stolen TARDISes are not my concern. “

“Oh, Is that how it is?” she gave a cheeky grin. “Hashtag Not All Time Lords?”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“Right. Never sayin’ that again.” She looked sheepish. “Go on.”

“The High Council doesn’t know I’m talking to you, and I’d like to keep it that way. We have something much more urgent to discuss. My name is Tyburn. I’m the director of Temporal Physics here at the Omega Institute.”

“Omega Institute? Doesn’t sound familiar.” She felt pins and needles in her hands and feet.  
Experimentally, she tried moving her fingers. Still immobile.

He sighed. “We’re a small research facility. Always ignored. We work just as hard as the big universities, but we never get any recognition, never get the top students…”

“Okay, so you’ve got a dead-end job. What does that have to do with me?” If Tyburn didn’t get to the point, she’d take some action. As soon as she could properly move.

“This.” He tapped the table, and everything disappeared. They were surrounded by projection appeared of a night sky. He pointed to an empty space in the center. Nothing but blackness. Too much blackness to be random. “This is a hole in space-time. Nothing exists there nor can exist there. And it’s growing. 3 million kilometers across and getting larger. Destroying everything in its path. A vast nothingness set to devour the universe. And by our most recent calculations, the rate of expansion is increasing.”

Her face darkened. She’d never seen anything like this before. Sometimes, a small hole in space-time occurred, but they were inconsequential and repaired themselves, like a paper cut.  
This was a bedsore on the universe. “But how did it happen? Must’ve been something huge to cause a hole like that.”

“We don’t know. I wish we knew.” He frowned. “We discovered the hole a few years ago, but we’ve had a great deal of difficulty learning anything about it. All of our observational equipment gave erratic readings. Probes disappeared. We don’t know what caused it or what used to be in its place. We were finally able to get some data. We know about when the hole appeared,” he paused and tapped the table again “and we know you were involved.”

The image of the sky was replaced a man, the tall skinny man with a penchant for pinstriped suits. It was her, three regenerations prior.

“What?” she was shocked.

“At the epicenter of the hole, we found an echo of what had existed when it burst into existence. A DNA fragment. Matching him. Matching you.”

“No…” Her voice was barely audible. “That’s impossible.”

“We double and triple checked. It was definitely you.” He gave her a stern look.

“No, it wasn’t. I, I, I couldn’t have done something like that. I mean, I was him, and I don’t remember doin’ that. Something that big, I think I’d remember it.”

“You may not. Being near a hole in space-time could affect your memory.” His eyes bore into her.

She nodded, wracking her brain to think of an alternate explanation. “Yeah, but maybe I was tryin’ to stop it. Maybe some other being created the hole. The Daleks! You know how much they love destruction.”

“No Daleks were detected.” He was solemn. “The Time Lords are one of the very few races in existence that could cause an anomaly of this magnitude.”

She and slumped in her chair and went silent. He had a point. To be the cause of so much destruction, so many lives certainly lost, or would be lost…her head was heavy with the knowledge. “Is there anything we can do to fix it?”

“It cannot be fixed. We’ve tried many solutions, and they have all failed. But.” His eyes brightened slightly. “We might be able to prevent it. As I mentioned, we were able to determine _when_ the hole appears. From the best of our observations, it’s not a fixed event.”

“So I can go back and stop myself.” Her tone was cautious. It was probably why she didn’t remember the hole, if she encountered another self from her (his? Pronouns were troublesome.) future. She could do it. “Give me coordinates, send me back to my body, and I’ll go there straight away.”

“Doctor, I suppose I don’t have to tell you this, but this will be highly dangerous. I know, you put yourself in risky situations all the time, almost as if you enjoy it. But if the hole is opened, everything it touches will cease to exist.”

She read between the lines. “No regenerations.” 

Tyburn nodded. “And you can’t take the TARDIS. Having a time machine that close to such a catastrophic event could cause even bigger problems. But,” he smiled slightly. “We have another method of travel-a Time Ring.”

“Ohhh, haven’t seen one of those in forever!” she smiled despite the situation. “I love Time Rings!”

“I’ll send it to you when you’re back on Earth. It’ll be programmed to send you to the origin of the hole approximately one day before its creation. We assume it was either a planet or a ship where the anomaly first occurred.”

“Okay.” She breathed. “Does the High Council know about this at all?”

“We tried showing them our findings, but they laughed us off, saying the data was corrupted, that we hadn’t collected it properly.” Tyburn was visibly annoyed.. “The bad news about being Omegans is nobody pays attention to you. The good news is nobody pays attention to you. We can operate without being held up by large egos or committee votes, we could have been held up for years. And we must act soon.How it happens, how to prevent it, is all on you.”

“Right.” She said. “No TARDIS, no idea where I’m going, giant space-time hole. I need to stop my past self and save the universe.” When she put it like that, it hardly sounded treacherous at all. 

“Precisely. Good luck, Doctor.” And she was surrounded by blurs again.

—  
The first thing she noticed was the dark, an ache in her head and back, and the strong scent of coffee. Above her, a cacophony of voices that alternated between angry, defiant, and worried.

“-three and a half hours! You said-”

“You’re not taking her!”

“What if she shouldn’t be moved?!”

“We’re wasting valuable time!”

“Fam?” she said weakly.

The voices stopped. “Doctor! You’re awake!” A single voice, sounding relieved. Yaz’s voice. She smiled and opened her eyes.

She was on the floor of the console room, with her friends standing over her, looking down on her. She was back in her TARDIS. She felt an instant of relief, then dread, remembering what had just transpired. The holee, consuming everything. Her fault.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She gingerly tried to sit up, but her feet were on Ryan’s backpack for some reason. Graham reached a hand out to pull her up.

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Yaz said. Standing face to face with her, the Doctor noticed tear stains on her cheeks. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Her voice was somber, flat. “Terrible backache though. Must be too old to lay on floors.” She gave them a small smile.

“I told you we should have moved her!” Graham exclaimed.

Ryan made a hushing motion. “What happened?” he asked.

“Telepathic conversation, from back home.” She looking carefully over the console. No Time Ring yet. “Look, everyone, there’s something I need to do, and it’s very important.”

“Okay. What do we need to do?” Graham still looked concerned, as if she’d pass out again at any moment.

“Not we. Me. This is something I have to do alone.”

“But we’re with you. Whatever you need.” Yaz protested.

“And this time, I need you to stay on Earth. Graham, could I park the TARDIS at your house for a bit? Just here in the backyard.” Graham was so taken aback he couldn’t do anything but nod.

“Why can’t we come with you?” Yaz, of course, wouldn’t let the matter drop. The Doctor inwardly cursed her stubbornness.

“It’s extremely dangerous.” It was the first thing she thought of, but realized too late it was a feeble protest. She couldn’t tell them what she’d done. She loved the way humans regarded her. The fam looked at her like she was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen. If they knew the truth about who she was, the things she’d done..everything would change.

“We’ve been in lots of dangerous spots before! Haven’t we, guys?” Yaz exclaimed. They nodded in agreement. “Where are you going? And why would you go without the TARDIS?”

“It’s complicated.” She said. “I’m sorry I can’t take you anywhere today, but it’s very urgent that I go as soon as I can. You’ll have to go home.” She shuffled to the console, trying not to aggravate her back, and turned a dial. “I’ve turned up the perception filter on the TARDIS. Nobody will notice it’s here while I’m gone.” 

Her friends were staring at her, dumbfounded. “But Doc..”

“No buts. Now I’m going to the med bay for some pain medicine. Be off, you lot. I’ll see you later.” _If I come back._ She vaguely heard additional protests from them as she walked out of the console room, but she waved them off with a hand.

\--

The med bay was a short walk away-thank goodness for the TARDIS rearranging rooms to make things easier for her. The place looked a little ransacked. She’d have to clean that up later. If she came back. She swallowed two pills and sat on the metal exam table, letting her legs dangle. They worked almost immediately, but her hearts felt heavy. She looked down at the pill bottle, turning it over in her hand.

A hole in space-time that size…what could she have done? All those planets and stars destroyed, so many lives lost, whole civilizations. At least during the Time War, her killing had been limited to a single planet. This was infinitely worse.

She closed her eyes. She liked to think of herself as a helper, but maybe this was who she really was. The Oncoming Storm, destroying everything it touched. Everything she cared about. The stars, the planets, her friends. Especially her friends. She couldn’t bring them into this. She’d already lost so many in such a short amount of time.

The humans she travelled with never stayed for long. She missed them, all of them. But in a way, it was better that they were only with her for a short time. If they stayed long enough, they’d see the dark side of her. The side of her that killed and destroyed. It was better if they didn’t know the truth.

“Doctor?” Yaz was standing in the doorway. “Are you feeling better?”

“I thought I told you to go.” Her tone was more brusque than she intended, but maybe that would get Yaz to leave like she was supposed to.

“No.” She crossed her arms. “None of us is leaving until you say what’s going on with you. What happened to you when you were asleep?”

“Not asleep. Under telepathic trance.” she could, at least, still correct humans. “And nothing happened!”

“Bullshit!” her nostrils flared. “Ever since you…de-tranced…you’ve not been acting like yourself. You’re abrupt, you’re skulking around, and you won’t tell us anything!” In quick strides, she walked up to the Doctor, her piercing gaze boring into her. “What’s happening with you?!”

The Doctor met her stare. “I can’t tell you, Yaz.”

“Why not? We’re supposed to be friends! And friends tell each other things!” Her expression changed, eyes widened in fear. “Did..did I do something wrong?”

Ugh, she could be such an idiot sometimes. In her rush to protect her friends, she’d hurt them instead. “We _are_ friends. You’re my best friend.”

“And you’re mine.” Yaz’s expression softened.

She gave a small smile. “Have a seat.” Yaz sat next to her on the exam table, a few inches away. The Doctor gathered up her inner strength, going over the words in her head, before she spoke, gripping the edge of the table as she did.

She took a deep breath. “Picture a vast nothingness. Not the void of space, but an absolute darkness, where nothing can possibly exist, not even time. And it’s getting larger and larger. It’s swallowed whole solar systems. It will destroy everything in existence.” She wouldn’t tell Yaz she was the cause of it. Let her continue to think she was a hero.

Yaz raised her eyebrows in shock. “What? How?”

“Don’t know. I need to figure that out.” She swung her legs as they talked. It was a bit of a stress reliever, actually. Having short legs wasn’t all bad.

“How are you going to stop it?”

“Not a clue.” She pushed back a stray lock of hair. “You know, you’re going to be brilliant at interrogating suspects.”

Yaz gave her a bigger smile. “If they ever let me do something besides write tickets.”

They both laughed. The Doctor felt a little better, as though the smallest amount of weight had been lifted from her. Yaz was a good person to talk to. 

“Doctor?” Ryan stuck his head in. “A thing just appeared on the console. I didn’t touch it.” He quickly added, putting his hands in the air.

“That’s my ride.” She sprung up and headed to the console room, with Yaz and Ryan trailing behind. She snatched up the bracelet sized ring that had appeared. “The Time Ring!”

“Time Ring!?” Graham sneered. “Do you just make up names for things by putting Time in front of them?”

The Doctor rolled her eyes. “Oi, I didn’t name it! Anyway, this is going to take me where I need to go.” She slipped the ring into her coat pocket, and put on her best upbeat tone. “I’ll be back soon.”

Ryan shifted his weight, unsure of whether to leave or further insist on staying. Graham touched his arm. “Doc, we’ll respect your wishes. Let’s go son.”

“Bye, Doctor. You better come back.” His voice was still strained.

“Don’t worry! I’ll be back before you know it!” she assured them.

Yaz hung back after Ryan and Graham left. “Are you sure we can’t come with you? It sounds like you’re going to need a lot of help.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t lying when I said it’s extremely dangerous. I have no idea where I’m going or what I’m going to do when I get there. It might be a place where humans can’t survive, and the TARDIS won’t be there for protection. I’d just…prefer you stay here.” Prem’s words flashed through her mind: _These are demons I have to face alone_.

“Ok.” She hesitated at the door, turning around.. “Doctor, you are going to come back, right?”

“Of course I’ll come back.” It was more like “possibly”, but she didn’t want to upset Yaz any further. “I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon. Bye, Doctor.” The door clicked shut behind her.

The Doctor pulled out the Time Ring, turning it over in her hands. She leaned back into the console, and took a moment to look around the console room. Her home for all these years. Now she was going to...who knew where, and now she was leaving without it. She’d be back, though. Probably.

In a way, this was a crazy thing to do. It could be a trap set by the High Council. Could she trust Tyburn to tell the truth? But if there was even a small chance he was, then she needed to go. She needed to stop the hole from happening, even if it was at great cost to herself. That’s who she was.

The Time Ring appeared to be gold, with a single, oblong black button on the outer surfaced. She pressed the button, and vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a fair warning, the Fam will not be appearing after this chapter, for reasons that will become more evident as the story goes on. Thanks for reading so far!


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor materialized standing on a city sidewalk, people rushing past her, barely paying attention. She nearly got knocked down once or twice. She walked a few blocks, matching the pace of the crowd. Time to get her bearings.

Everyone passing her by was human, or they were at least very well disguised. That limited the options. Based on the size of the crowds and the tall buildings, she was in a large city. It seemed vaguely familiar. It seemed like Earth, but it wasn’t Earth. She’d spent enough time on Earth to know what it felt like, and this planet felt different. It was more advanced than Earth, but not much more advanced than the 21st century Earth she’d left. The street was clogged with cars, but she noted few of them were being driven. Based on the number of people out, it was late rush hour. She looked up. No vehicles except for a lone helicopter. A city this large should have a spaceport.

She tried to feel for the presence of another Time Lord, but she felt nothing. If her past self was on this planet, she should be able to feel it. Had he used the Chameleon Arch again? That might have affected her memory of this place too. But even last time she’d used it, hiding out from the Family in 1913, she’d remembered what happened while she was human.

She turned onto a smaller street with little traffic, and examined the first shop. A thick metal door sealed a secondhand boutique clothing store. That was odd. Was this a high crime area? Based on the surrounding buildings, she noticed every entrance had a similar type of door, and all the windows were barred. The buildings themselves were well kept, not a sign of a slum, simply grey and lifeless.

She traded the Time Ring in her hand for the sonic and scanned the door. Ordinary steel, but very strong.

“Watch out, miss.” The voice of an old man called from the next doorway down. “Cans’ll get ya.”

“Cans? What do you mean?” She looked over at him. He was probably about eighty in Earth years. He had a long grey beard. He leaned on his cane as he on the stairs leading up to what she presumed was a flat complex.

“You got a license for that tech?” he got off the steps and walked towards her, keeping a cautious few feet away.

She pointed to the sonic. “This is all the license I need.” This was happening a lot, especially in her current regeneration. Extremely annoying. Really, what was it with human men and demanding she follow the rules?

“If that ain’t licensed, the cans’ll come. You been under a rock or somethin’?”

“Yeah, not from around here.” She gave the door another scan with the sonic. Several layers of attached alarms, but she couldn’t quite place the origin.

“Sounds like you’re from the North?” he persisted.

“From the North, yes.” she nodded. Good thing lots of planets had a North.

“They’ve got ‘em up North too, I heard.”

“I’m from a small town. Very, very small town. Not even on the maps.”

“Yeah, may not be able to afford the cans. It’s all about keeping us safe, they say. Fat lot of rubbish!” he frowned.

She peered at him. “Safe from what?”

He didn’t answer, instead his mouth formed an O as he pointed behind her. “There’s one!” he shouted as he took several steps backward.

The Doctor turned around to see a large black cylinder whizzing toward her. It stopped abruptly a few feet from where she stood, hovering several inches above the ground. It looked to be metal, about the size of a hot water heater. It had a round monitor on its front, and the outline of a compartment on the bottom.

"Security drone, I'm guessing? Look, just scannin'. Not causing trouble." She held up the sonic.

An orange glowing mass emerged from its compartment and spat towards her. The mass expanded into a net-like shape, knocking her to the ground. She tried to push the net off of her, and she found it could move, but the edges remained in contact with the ground. She couldn’t get out from under it. 

“What’s this all about?! I didn’t break in!!” She pushed buttons on the sonic but nothing happened; it was useless.

The cylinder spoke in a monotone voice, “You are under arrest for violating the Technology Registration and Licensure Act.” The monitor flashed with what looked like a police logo.

“The Technology What Act? What’s that?” she asked. She turned back around to ask the old man, who was backing away.

“Sorry miss, don’t want to be charged with abettin’. Good luck” he disappeared into the building.

The cylinder continued without acknowledgment. “For the safety of all citizens of the United Kingdom, because you have violated the Technology Registration and Licensure Act, all rights have been suspended.”

“No! Is there someone I can talk to? I don’t even understand what I did wrong!” She continued to thrash against the net without result. She didn’t have time for this. She had to stop a cataclysm.

“You will be held here until your transfer to a detention center. Transfer will occur in three to six hours. We appreciate your patience.”

She cried. “You have to let me out! This planet, this whole system is in grave danger, unless you…”

Without a word, the drone whizzed away as quickly as they’d come. She smacked her hands against the net, giving an “argh!” in frustration.

This was bad. She needed to get out of there quickly. Who knows what kind of penal system this planet had, and if she’d ever be able to escape from it? She tried tugging again at the edge of the net. It didn’t budge. Without the sonic, she couldn’t tell what it was made of, but she guessed steel reinforced with single walled carbon nanotubes, based on its strength and flexibility. There had to also be some kind of power source, but the site of it wasn’t obvious.

She sat on the ground and tried to figure out what to do next.

—  
The computer on the table behind Rose beeped, urging attention. There was a notification from one of the monitoring programs they used to look for energy anomalies. She opened the window and studied the readings.

“What’s going on?” Sameera, her co-worker, walked over.

“Burst of artron energy. Huge amounts.” She typed in coordinates, and a map appeared “Right here.”

“In the East End. Remind me again what artron energy is?”

“Associated with time travel.” Her heart skipped a beat. It shouldn’t have. They encountered time travelers every now and then. Their time travelers were usually individuals that had strayed off course with their time machines, or every now and then, encountered a natural phenomenon allowing them to travel in time and space. A few humans, but mostly alien races. They’d met a few sods trying to muck about with the course of history, but most often they met someone who’d simply needed some help to get home. As she well knew, time travel was an extremely difficult thing to do precisely. “Can you pull up CCTV footage from that area?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. She went back to her desk and started a program to access the CCTV feed. Rose tried to keep calm. It wasn’t the Doctor. Couldn’t be the Doctor. He couldn’t travel here. She’d told herself this every time they had a time traveler, yet she always had a shred of hope.

She shivered, and held her jacket tighter around her. The warehouse was so drafty, and it wasn’t going to get more comfortable as winter approached. She missed the old Torchwood offices in Canary Wharf, but with Torchwood being disbanded-officially, at least-this had to do. A friend of their boss, Colin, had rented them the warehouse space at a good price. It was functional-plenty of equipment storage-but not comfortable by a long shot..

“Got it. Oh no.” Sameera’s triumphant smile turned to a look of horror. “A Net. Blasted things.” She pointed to the orange glow on the screen. “See, this is the problem with the Tech Reg Act. Just like with the aliens! They don’t know the rules, they get thrown in jail! But does anyone listen to us? No!” She threw up her hands.

Rose nodded in agreement. She and Sameera had had this discussion numerous times over the past four years. It wasn’t worth pointing out, yet again, the public was blissfully unaware of the existence of aliens or time travelers.

“Can you zoom in a bit? Let’s see who’s caught in it.” Rose asked.

“Sure.” She focused on the Net. “Looks human. Our time traveler?”

“Likely, yeah.” Rose nodded, “Can we get another look?”

Sameera frowned with concentration as she rewound the footage. They studied the monitor. The time traveler looked like a human woman, with blonde hair and a long grey coat. And trousers that were too short for her. She was holding links of the Net in her hands, her nose scrunched in concentration. “Can’t quite place her fashion sense. Is that how we’re going to dress in the future?”

“I hope not.” Rose smirked. “Actually, can you bring up some images from around the area? I’d like to get a wider view. She might be with someone.” She didn’t want to admit to Sameera she was actually looking for a certain blue box. “While you’re at it, can you check for other sources of artron energy too?”

“On it.” She tapped a few more buttons, and CCTV images appeared of the surrounding streets.

The additional footage revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Sameera confirmed the woman in the Net was the only source of artron energy. Oh well. It was a relief. She didn’t want the Doctor to see the mess she’d made of things.

At least that was what Rose told herself.

They went to see Colin in his office, which was so small there was barely room for the three of him. He was bent over his computer, his ample frame taking up most of the tiny space behind his desk.

“Colin,” Sameera said. He looked up. “We got a suspected time traveler stuck in a Net.”

Colin raised his hand to his chin, looking thoughtful. “Hmm, haven’t seen one of those in a while. How much do we know? Species? Means?” He spoke with an Irish brogue.

“Looks human. Time travel device or phenomena unknown.” Sameera reported.

“Maybe a Vortex Manipulator? We can’t get close enough to see her wrists.” Rose volunteered.

“Possible. And it would trigger the cans. Did you check for accomplices or…”

“Yeah, she appears to be alone.” Sameera crossed her arms. “I know how to do my job.”

“I didn’t say anything!” He harrumphed. “We need to get to her before the police do. Who knows what she’ll say to them?! They’ll decide she’s some kind of nutter and throw her in a mental ward. Rose, you’re the only one of us that has time travel experience, so you take the lead.”

“What’s the plan, once we get her out?” Rose asked.

Colin sighed. “We’ll question her and if she’s not dangerous, we’ll let her go. Be careful, though. She might be...”

“Armed. We know.” This was also a familar routine. “We’ll check in with you in an hour.”

They headed to the van parked in the loading dock. Sameera punched in the address on the van monitor “Forty minutes to get there. Traffic is bloody crazy.” She groaned. “At least the police take their sweet time with the Nets. So sure they’re indestructible. Think it’d be faster in manual?”  
“Doubt it. The auto-nav is good for avoiding traffic.” Rose said. She pushed the green button on the console, and the van pulled away.  
—  
The Doctor was still poking at the Net with no progress when two figures approached, men wearing black shirts and pants. They wore helmets with tinted face shields. The police, though she didn’t see any insignias or badges.

“No sudden moves.” Said the taller one. He took out a small box and removed a small tool. Kneeling at a section of the Net with thicker links, he began tinkering with something she couldn’t quite make out.

“Oh finally, someone to talk to!” she exclaimed. “ Look, this has all been a big misunderstanding. I really need to get out of here. It’s very important…”

“Quiet.” Said the other one. She stood up to face him. She couldn’t get a good look at him through the face shield, but he sounded young.

“Can’t be quiet. One of my character flaws, I suppose. Listen, I think you want to do the right thing. Do you really think this is the right? Locking people up for scannin’ a door?” she held up the useless sonic.

The man tapped his partner, who was still working at the Net. “Hey, you ever seen one of these?”

He looked up briefly, shook his head, and went back to his work. She noticed a bulge at the shorter man’s side, indicating he had a gun. Presumably, they were going to take her out of this net, and off to jail. She might have the chance to escape, but she’d have to be careful.

She addressed the young man. “Listen, Officer…?” He didn’t say a word. She continued. “This is just a tool. Not a weapon. I never carry weapons. Don’t use ‘em. I’m on a mission to do something that absolutely needs this, and I have to…”

“Got it. Ready?” The tall man asked his partner, who nodded.

The tall man placed what looked like a tuning fork on the Net. The glowing stopped. With one quick motion, the shorter man threw up the Net and grabbed the Doctor by the arm, pulling her to her feet. “You’re coming with us. Stay calm and you won’t get hurt. Don’t say a word.” She tried to wrest out of his grip, but he was too strong. He grabbed the sonic with the other hand and put it in his pocket. The tall man grabbed her other arm.

They walked and she tried to figure out what to do. If she tried to make a run for it, they’d shoot her. If she could maneuver her way into the bloke’s pocket, she could get her sonic back, and use it to cause a distraction. She guessed the net had some sort of dampening effect on the sonic, and it would work now. Maybe she should have brought Yaz with her; she could have talked cop to them.

They’d walked for two blocks and were just about to turn the corner when it occurred to her. “Wait. If I’m a dangerous criminal, shouldn’t you have some sort of restraint? Handcuffs or zip ties or somethin?”

“Smart, this one.” The taller man remarked. She noticed a slight Asian accent. He relaxed his grip, and leaned over to say in a low voice “Abandoned Tube station. 200 meters up. Act normal.”

They weren’t cops.

So who were they? And what did they want with her?

And how does this planet have a Tube station?

They turned onto a crowded street, walking briskly to keep up with the crowd. The Doctor struggled to keep up with her would-be captors’ pace. The Tube station had a gate over the entrance, which the taller man let go of her to unlock. The shorter one led her down the stairs into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, on Doctor Who:
> 
> A few answers. A lot more questions. And finally, a reunion.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

The autonav display stated they were five minutes from the Net. Rose didn’t buy it, given all the traffic. She stared out the window. So many cars. No wonder the planet was still warming.

“You ever miss it? Time travel, I mean.” Sameera interrupted her thoughts.

“Yeah, I miss it sometimes.” She looked up to the sky. “Not just time travel, but exploring new planets, seeing the universe. Traveling all sorts of places. It was the best time of my life.”

“Is that the reason why you and he…”

“No. That’s not it.” Rose cut her off. It had been a source of contention between her and John. She’d lost track of how many times when they fought he’d say, “It’s because I’m not him, isn’t it?” She’d tried to placate him, but it never seemed to be enough. Not that Sameera needed to know that.

Of her co-workers, only Colin had known her from when she’d first joined Torchwood, but all of them knew all about the Doctor and her travels with him. And they all knew John. Met him, at least once. Part of the nature of the job-a small team working closely together for long hours-was that her coworkers had no hesitation in asking lots of personal questions, even when she wished they didn’t.

Sameera was the worst offender. She was also the newest team member, having been recruited four years ago when she got in the middle of stopping an alien invasion. Her being nosy made her an asset for investigating, but a pain in the ass in everything else.

The car turned onto a less crowded street. “What happened then? You hardly told us anything. He didn’t hit you or nothin’ like that, did he?”  
“No, he’s not like that.” She changed the subject, relieved the autonav had been right, for once. “Looks like it’s up on the next street, yeah?”

“Straight ahead.” She peered out the window. The car approached the Net and they were astonished to find it empty. “What the hell?”

“Did the police come already?” Rose frowned, and sighed. It was going to be a huge pain to get the time traveler out of police custody. Their “official” documents usually did the trick, but they’d been getting suspicious of those lately.

“What do we do?”

“Find out where she is.” She hit the phone button on the car’s console. “Call Colin,” she said to the AI assistant.

“What’s up?” Colin sounded annoyed.

“Lost our time traveler. Can you look at the artron energy readouts and see where she is?”’

“Just a sec.” Shuffling of footsteps, and then, “Faint traces, trail leading about two blocks north, one block east. Standing still for now.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

“Don’t lose her again.” Colin added before Rose could disconnect. Sameera changed the car navigation to manual, then sped down the street.

“Whoa! Where are you going so fast?” Rose gripped her seat.

“Not gonna poke along in the autonav if she’s on the move.” She gripped the wheel.

\--  
Once her captors had turned on their torches, the Doctor got a good look at where they were. The station had been abandoned for some time. Rusty turnstiles were surrounded by peeling paint. The signage was missing half their letters. A ticket booth was covered in cobwebs.

The men removed their face shields. “They mess up the facial recognition software, make it harder to track us. Also adds to the authenticity.” The taller one spoke. He had a thin face with sharp, angular features. “Sorry about the rough handling back there, miss. We had to make it look good to not draw suspicion.”

“And what is it we’re doing here?” she asked.

“Civil disobedience. You ever hear of the Strongarm movement?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, no. But I’m not from around here.” she added. “I have a lot of questions, fake cops, but first things first. I’m the Doctor. “What should I call you?”

“I’m Jae-Kwang, and this is Luke.” He gestured to his partner, who was studying her carefully.

“Luke, can I have my sonic back?” He had dark brown hair and youthful features to match his voice.

He reached into his pocket. “You can’t use it. The energy signature will attract the cans.” She gave a brief nod before putting the sonic back in her coat pocket. “Never seen something like that before. What is it?”

“Like I said, a tool.”

“If it’s such a useful tool, why isn’t it licensed?”

“Why arrest someone simply for using ‘unlicensed tech’ in the first place?” the Doctor countered. She was getting more annoyed with this place by the minute.

“That’s why we joined Strongarm. Because we don’t agree with it.” Jae-Kwang’s eyes darted periodically towards the stairwell to the street. “A lot of people dislike it, but they’re signing online petitions and other bullshit that doesn’t accomplish anything. We favor using more direct tactics.”

“How’d you get involved in this?” the Doctor asked.

“I came here from Seoul to do my PhD in Electrical Engineering, but then the Tech Reg Act passed. Couldn’t do anything without licensure, and they were so overloaded with requests, that it took forever. I dropped out.” Jae Kwan’s eyes flickered with anger.

“It’s a bunch of rubbish.” Luke scoffed. “It’s ain’t got nothin’ to do with security, it’s all so Stowber can have the monopoly on progress.”

“To demand licensure for any new technology, even a school project, that would grind progress to a trickle.” she remarked. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s just England. United States of Mexico might follow suit. Things are worse in America  
though.” Luke continued. “They banned all knee replacements, heart valves, anything mechanical in a body. People are dying over there because of this nonsense.” 

So she was on Earth, in England, although the Tube station was a big giveaway. A somewhat different Earth than the one she’d left. Perhaps in the near future? Or one of the New Earths, though the tech looked too unsophisticated for that. “But like you said, technical progress would slow down. England would lose its competitive edge against other countries. “How did this start?”

“Well, you know. It’s from the attacks. People got scared. Bunch of wankers living in fear.”

She scrunched her nose. “What attacks? Like I said, I’m not from around here.”

Luke looked at her in disbelief. “But they were everywhere. All over the world.”

“What was?”

“Cybermen.”

A chill went through her. Cybermen had been here? Were they the reason for the hole in space-time? Perhaps she’d tried to do something drastic to defeat them and made it worse. It sounded like this attack had happened years ago, but they had a stubborn habit of lurking around. “Cybermen. Faced them many times before, scary indeed. Seen any recently?”

It was Jae Kwang’s turn to express his skepticism, “What do you mean, many times before?”

“Other planets, all different galaxies and times. It’s what _I_ do.” She gave a triumphant smile.

Jae-Kwang turned to Luke. “This one’s yours. She’s mad.”

“I think we should hear her out.” Luke said.

Jae-Kwang rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. You and your stupid conspiracy theories. ‘The President’s having secret meetings with Stowber. There’s a giant weapon stash in Salisbury….’”

“They ain’t conspiracy theories if they’re true!” Luke was agitated. “It’s all a plot to further enrich the billionaires!”

“Don’t listen to him when he goes off about this stuff, Doctor.” Jae Kwang said. “Anyway, we’ll be safe down here for a while. No CCTV down here, so they won’t be able to see us. The cans have your picture though, so you won’t be able to go home anytime soon. We’ve got a whole network of safehouses who can help you lay low.”

“No time for that.” the Doctor was firm. “As much as I love a conspiracy, you two need to listen to me. “Everything I’m saying is true. And this planet is in a whole lot of trouble, especially if Cybermen are involved somewhere. I’ve come here because this entire planet, this entire galaxy is in danger, and I need to…”

Jae-Kwang held up a hand “Shhh. I hear something.” He said in a low voice. He turned his head slowly towards the entrance. “Can at the door.”

Luke shot the Doctor a look. “You activate any other tech while we’ve been down here?”

“Not a thing.” She briefly wondered if the Time Ring gave off an energy signature, but thought it best not to bring up.

“Sometimes they do routine scans.” Jae-Kwang continued to whisper “Probably one of those. We’ve been using this station for weeks and...”

He was interrupted by a loud noise at the entrance. “Fuck! It’s blasted through.” 

The Doctor leapt into action. “Let’s get out of here.” She vaulted over a turnstile. “Down the stairs!” They followed her down the stairs to the train platform.

When they reached the platform, the Doctor quickly surveyed their options. To their right was a tile wall, ten meters from the entrance. The rest of the platform, to the left, was blocked off with concrete blocks. She moved right, followed by the men. “This should buy us a minute, maybe two.” The train platform was only in the same shape as the station above, but at least had some dim lighting. “Ideas?”

“Jump down to the track and make a run for it?” Jae-Kwang asked.

“Not a chance. Station is closed but the line is still in use. Third rail’ll get ya if a train doesn’t. We’ll have to stand and fight.” Luke’s hand went to the bulge on his hip.

“With a gun? No, never use ‘em.” The Doctor cut in. With no chance to escape the drones, she’d have to take a risk. She could hear the drone whirring. It was close. She pulled out her sonic.  
“You two, get behind me.”

“What’re you doing with that?” Luke sounded anxious.

She turned back to him. “Disabling it.”

“You said you wouldn’t use it! If you use that, you’ll only attract more cans!”

“And what happens if you destroy them? Probably the same thing.” She turned to the entrance, and steeled herself for its appearance. Any second now…  
The drone appeared in the doorway, a red light appearing on its display. The Doctor activated the sonic. After a few seconds, the drone clattered to the ground, its displays powered down.  
She turned back to the men. “See? No need for guns.”

“Yeah, but it took too long! The red light came on and scanned us! Probably has our faces now.” Luke said.

“That might be a problem, but…” She stopped. Faint footsteps, getting closer. “Do you hear that?”

“Police came with them. Probably since you escaped the first time.” Jae-Kwang’s shoulders tensed.

“Bet you’re glad we’re armed after all, eh miss?” Luke pulled out the gun, pointing it at the doorway.

“No! You’re not shootin’ anyone, especially a police officer!” the Doctor put her hand over the barrel.

“I am, unless you got some kind of anti-cop setting on that whizzy tool of yours.” Luke glared at her, challenging her to move. She didn’t flinch.

“And the cops are definitely gonna have guns!” Jae-Kwang’s words came in a rush. “We gotta stop them or we’re all fucked!”

“While we’re arguing, they’re getting closer!” Luke exclaimed. “We’re gonna have to fight our way out, or…”

Two figures stepped onto the platform, glancing at the drone, then looking in their direction.  
One was a tall black woman, wiry, with short curly hair. The other one, shorter, blonde, was a face all too familiar.

“Those ain’t cops.” Luke acknowledged without moving the barrel of the gun. “Who are they?”

The Doctor gasped.  
_How is she here?_  
_ Did she come here with him? Must’ve. Before she was trapped._

She’d been so hung up on her own involvement with the space-time hole, she hadn’t thought of seeing an old friend again. And not a moment too soon. If anyone could help her stop a catastrophe… 

A wide grin spread over her face.  
“Rose!” she cried.

\--  
Rose blinked in confusion when the time traveler called out to her. How did she…? Then she realized. The facial expression, the inflection she’d used with her name…it wasn’t the same body as before, but she _knew_ As if she could ever forget.

“Doctor?” she said cautiously.

The Doctor nodded, then ran towards her and wrapped her in a tight hug. It felt odd, having him-her-at roughly the same height. She’d imagined this moment, that the Doctor came back, for years. All the things she’d say to him if they ever saw each other again. And with everything that had happened, it was all a rush of excitement, confusion, and amazement. There were so many things Rose wanted to say, but she ended up blurting out the first thing that came to mind:

“Look at you! You’re female!”

“Yes! Get that a lot. Do you like it?”

She took a step back, looked her up and down, and smiled. “It’s great!”

The Doctor smiled even wider, “It’s so good to see you, Rose.”

Sameera interrupted. “What’s going on? Who is this?”

Rose turned to her, “This is the Doctor! He’s-she’s-come back!” _She_. That was going to take some getting used to.

Sameera shook her head. “What are you on about? That ain’t the Doctor. He’s a tall skinny bloke. How can _she_ be the Doctor?”

“Future version, several lifetimes in fact. Regeneration is always hard for humans to grasp.” The Doctor explained. “Guessing you’re a local?”

“Uhh, yeah.” Sameera replied, nodding slowly. It was a lot to take in, Rose knew. She’d explain more later.

Turning her attention back to the Doctor, Rose asked, “How are you here?”

“I know, I know. Not supposed to cross my own timeline, but it’s very, very important I’m here and I had to take the chance. Where am I, anyway?”

“What do you mean? You’re in a Tube station.”

“I know that, I mean the past me, the one that you’re here with.”

“Your clone?” Rose’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of him. _Don’t ask, don’t ask, please don’t ask…_.

For a millisecond, the Doctor looked confused, then her eyes widened as understanding hit her. “Ohhhhh, I’m so thick! I hadn’t even considered the parallel universe! They could do that! No wonder this planet looked so similar to Earth, because it _is_ Earth, just slightly different!”

Before she could ask the Doctor anything further, the men she was with came running up behind her. “We need to get out of here now.” To her relief, his gun was reholstered. The cops will notice a can is dead, and they’ll send the cavalry. Move now, talk later.”

“Van’s parked outside.” Rose agreed. Out of instinct, she grabbed the Doctor’s hand as they ran back up the stairs, followed by the rest of the group. She reached for a key fob and the doors to a black van slid open. “Everyone in!” she called.

Sameera climbed into the driver’s seat. “Gonna take some side streets. Bit of a roundabout way.  
Keep the cops from catching on. “Everyone hold on!” She slammed on the gas, and the van launched forward. She took an immediate sharp turn through an alley barely large enough for the van to fit.

Rose, sitting in the middle row of seats, reached under the seat for a small box, “The sonic screwdriver is going to cause problems here.”

“Yeah, got that.” The Doctor was sitting next to her, and her smile hadn’t left her face. This regeneration certainly seemed more cheerful than the previous ones.

“Oh, of course, that’s how they got you, isn’t it?.” Not waiting for a reply, she pulled out the dampener, which looked like black electrical tape. “Apply this on the side” She handed it to the Doctor. “It will still work, but will dampen the energy signature. The cans won’t be able to detect it.”

“Brilliant! Thanks.” She quickly applied the dampener to the sonic.

“Had to do something to mask the alien tech.” Rose smiled. _The Doctor is here_, she kept telling herself. She could hardly believe it. It wasn’t the way she imagined it, but the Doctor was here, and she had so many questions.How long had it been for her? What had she been doing? Where had she been? What was it that was so important for her to be here?

“All right, this is really weird. Who are you?!” The tall, Asian man interrupted her thoughts.

“We’re Torchwood.” she replied. “Friends of yours?” she asked the Doctor.

“Brand new friends. Jae-Kwang and Luke.” the Doctor gestured. “Sprung me out of that net.”

Rose sighed. Colin would have had a fit over her indiscretion, but they’d seen the van and they’d met the Doctor. She could wipe their memories later if she needed to.

“Shite, I knew it!” Luke elbowed Jae-Kwang. “You keep calling me mad, but I knew they were real! You lot been hidin’ aliens! The government’s in on it!”

“We’re not real. Not anymore.” Rose said sharply. “And who are you, breaking people out of Nets?”

“We’re Strongarm.” Jae-Kwang said.

“Oh, them. I’ve seen your protests. Ain’t doing nothing.” Sameera’s voice dripped with contempt. “Think you’re going to overturn the Tech Reg act by blocking traffic?” she scoffed. “All you’re doing is making people get written up for being late to work. And that shop you all destroyed last month? Vandalism isn’t gonna win people over.”

“Don’t see you complaining we freed your friend.” Jae-Kwang’s eyes narrowed.

“Oi! We have more urgent matters to deal with!” The Doctor interjected. The van made a sharp turn, and she held herself in place to keep from sliding into Rose. “Drive reckless much?” she called.

“You’re one to talk. I’ve seen the way you drive the TARDIS.” Rose smirked. “By the way, where is it? We didn’t see any sign of it on our scanners.”

“Couldn’t bring it. Order of the Time Lords.”

“I thought they were..” She was too shocked to finish. Were there Time Lords still around?

“Not dead, turns out, but hidden in a pocket universe. Long story.” She pulled what looked like a bracelet out of her coat pocket. “They sent me here with this. Time Ring. Transports the user to preprogrammed destinations.” This was starting to feel like old times, with the Doctor explaining time travel technology to her. 

She felt a pang of regret she’d missed out on a lot since they’d last seen each other. But she had to get the facts about the Doctor’s appearance first. “Why did they send you?” she asked.

“Glad you asked.” She turned serious, tense. “This is highly urgent! Sometime in the next day, a gigantic hole in space time will be created, right on the spot of this planet. Destroying everything.”

Rose gasped, and her head spun. No wonder the Doctor was here. “How? Can you stop it?”

“See? She’s a nutter!” Jae-Kwang said. “Are you going to listen to her?!”

Rose shot him daggers. “She’s not a nutter, she’s a time traveler. I’ve known her for a long time. If she says the planet is in danger, than it’s in danger. Now shut up or we’ll kick you and your friend out of the van and leave you at the mercy of the police.” She gripped her armrest as  
Sameera made another sharp turn.

Jae-Kwang was about to reply but Luke grabbed his arm, “Cool it, mate.” He hesitated for a moment, then closed his mouth.

That settled, Rose turned back to the Doctor. “Anyway, imminent planetary destruction.” 

“The answer to both of your questions is ‘I don’t know’. But I’m going to figure it out.. And somehow my past self is involved…” she stopped. “No wait. It wasn’t me. Of course, now it all makes sense!”

“What does?”

“The Time Lord who sent me, he told me my previous regeneration, the aforementioned tall skinny bloke, caused the space-time hole. But I didn’t remember anything about it…and that’s why I don’t remember, because I wasn’t here! I didn’t do it! And I couldn’t sense another Time Lord on this planet, because there aren’t any! It wasn’t me, it was _him_!” The smallest bit of tension from the Doctor eased. It might be a new body, but Rose could intuit every bit of her body language. “Rose, I need to find my clone, and fast. Where is he?”

Her euphoria at seeing the Doctor again ground to a halt. Of course she would ask. And Rose had to tell her something she’d hoped she’d never have to. She had no idea how the Doctor would take it. Would she be angry? Hurt? Indifferent? She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Inside her, a small voice hoped the Doctor’s reaction would be relieved or even joyous. She shut that up. She couldn’t hope for that, and she wasn’t even sure that was the best choice.

Realizing the Doctor was still waiting for a response, Rose said “I don’t know.” Her voice was flat, lifeless.

“We’ll find him!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Can’t have gone far, right? When did you last see him?”

“Eight months ago.” Rose turned away.

“Eight months?” The Doctor looked incredulous. “ Is he all right? Imprisoned somewhere? If he’s acting against his will, maybe that would explain what happened.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. He’s fine, but we’re not.”Knowing she could put this off no longer, Rose met her eyes again. “We broke up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this one! Next chapter will have more answers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely readers. 
> 
> This chapter and the next one are big-time info dumps. If you're reading for action, don't despair, there will be more of that to come.

“What? No.” The Doctor felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. She knew the way she’d felt-he felt-about Rose. What could have possibly gone wrong? They were supposed to be together for the rest of their lives. This was a blip, like that time Amy and Rory divorced. She’d fixed that. She could fix this too. “How long ago was this?”

“The last time I saw him, eight months ago, I told him I was leaving him.” Rose looked down.

“Can you tell me how this happened?”

She gave a brief glance at her fellow passengers. “I don’t want to talk about   
it right now.”

“Look, I know this isn’t easy, but we need to stop him from doing whatever he’s going to do.” When Rose wouldn’t say anything further, she tried a different tactic. “Do you still talk to him?”

She gave a slight nod. “Text him every so often, just to see how he’s doing. Last time was two, maybe three weeks ago? He didn’t say much, mostly that he was busy. Took him a while to answer.”

“What he busy with?”

“Wouldn’t say. Didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Can you try calling him?”

“Yeah.” She pulled out her phone. The call went straight to voicemail.

“Damnit. Let me try calling Dad.” This time she had better luck. “Hi Dad? It’s me. You hear from John lately? Uh-huh, anything else? Okay. I’m fine, little busy right now. I’ll call you later, bye.” she hung up.

“John?” The Doctor asked.

“He doesn’t like being called Doctor.” she explained. “Anyway, the only communication was saying there was an estate tax bill for the flat come up a few months earlier. Part of our arrangement.”

“What kind of arrangement?”

She fixated on a stain on the upholstery. “We’re supporting him. Well, technically, Dad is since he’s got more money than he knows what to do with. John was always rubbish at keeping a proper job. I feel kind of responsible for him, about what happened. He doesn’t have anyone else.”

The Doctor read between the lines to conclude she left him. That was just as baffling. And what kind of mental state would he have been in? Possibly a destructive one? 

Rose added, “Maybe he’s home. Spends most of his time there.” She addressed Sameera. “Swing by my old flat? It’s on the way back to headquarters.”

Sameera looked doubtful. “With three fugitives on board? Bad idea. We should go back straight away.”

“Won’t take long. Just need to see if John is home. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” 

“Let me see if Colin…”

“I’m the lead on this. I say we do it.” Rose was firm. “If the Doctor’s right, if John destroys the planet, the police are the least of our worries.”

“Okay, fine. But if we get nabbed, it’s on you.” She entered a new course in Nav, then made another sharp turn. “Should be there in twenty.”

“Let’s hope he’s there.” Rose turned back to the Doctor.

“Yeah.” The Doctor agreed. “So what’s going on with this planet? There weren’t all these security drones the last time I was here. And speaking of the last time, what happened to the zeppelins? I haven’t seen a single one.”

“Grounded. For ‘security.’” Luke put the last word in air quotes. “How long ago were you here? The zeppelins haven’t run in eight years.”

“Think it was..2007? No, this universe runs a few years ahead, doesn’t it?” the Doctor scrunched her nose.   
“Yeah, things are pretty different around here, aren’t they? It actually started, I guess, with the Cybermen attacks when we were here the first time.” Rose said. “People were afraid. Sales of weapons and disaster preparation supplies went up. Barred windows, thick steel doors started appearing everywhere. There were some people clamoring for strict security controls after that, mostly fringe groups.”

“Until Birmingham happened.” Jae-Kwang said.

“It was when I was using the dimension cannon. Took a lot of tries to find you. I was gone for months.” Rose said. “I didn’t find out about it until after we came back. Not all the Cybermen crossed into our universe. There was an inactivated group in a warehouse in Birmingham. This idiot, Reginald Mull,” the humans flinched at his name, “built a control device and intended to make them his personal army.”

“And it didn’t work.” The Doctor surmised. Honestly, when were people going to learn they couldn’t control Cybermen?

Rose nodded. “The Cybermen woke up, but they stopped responding to his commands and followed their own programming. Two thousand people dead or upgraded, including Mull. Took a week to get them under control. We lost half our team.

“After that, the entire country-the world-was terrified. President Jones pleaded for calm and refused to listen to the mob mentality. She was voted out. The new president, James Alexander, on a promise to be tough about Cybermen attacks. And he signed the Tech Reg Act.

“All technology has to be assessed for the possibility for creating, controlling, or being used to the advantage of Cybermen before it can receive a license. Torchwood refused to comply; we didn’t want the government being privy to our alien tech. And so we were officially outlawed. We’re working underground now. Someone has to defend the planet from aliens.”

“But registering technology...is that really going to be effective?” The Doctor said. “Cybermen can develop anywhere. They can invade from another planet.”

“Don’t I know it.” Rose scoffed. “But people want to feel like they’re safe. And the politicians act like it’s worked, because nobody’s seen a Cyberman in years. Not since Birmingham.”

“Right.” She’d seen the way humans in her universe reacted to terrorist threats, making up ridiculous rules to fly in airplanes. "But one thing I don't understand, people are afraid of Cybermen, yet they let those security drones fly around everywhere?"

"They're designed to be stupid." Jae-Kwang broke in. Seeing the Doctor's eyes widen, he added, "No, really. They're programmed for specific tasks and that's it. No AI, nothing like that. There's a central control that's run by humans. That was the way they were sold-they were incapable of evolving into Cybermen."

"Wouldn't count on it. " the Doctor replied, and took a moment to contemplate what she’d learned. John wouldn’t be foolish enough to be in league with Cybermen; she was sure of that. But if he couldn’t hold down a job, what was keeping him busy?

\--  
A few minutes later,, the van stopped in the parking lot of a high-rise flat complex. “Are we all going in?” Sameera asked.

“Just me and the Doctor.” Rose hopped out of the van, followed by the Doctor. “Keep the van running. If any cops show up, get out of here as fast as you can.”

Sameera nodded her assent. “I should call Colin anyway and fill him in.”

“We’ll have to go in the back. There’s a security drone at the front desk. Cameras in the lobby and the elevators too.” Rose pulled a small device out of her pocket as they walked. “This will erase the last thirty seconds of the recording.”

“Those drones are everywhere, aren’t they? Concerns about people buildin’ hobby kits?” the   
Doctor asked.

“There’s different kinds of SecDrones, for all sorts of purposes. General monitoring, scanning for tech, riot control, but yeah, they’re all over the place. They’re color coded. Private security ones, like at the front desk, are blue.” They reached the back door, which was marked with a Residents Only sign. “I’ve still got a key.” She fished it out of her pocket.

At the door to the flat, they knocked and received no response. “John?” Rose called, knocking louder. “Gone out. Or ignoring me.”

“We need to see which one.” The Doctor unlocked the door with the sonic, and swung it open. “Oi, this place is a mess.”

There were papers strewn everywhere, on nearly every surface and all over the floor, some crumpled. Where there was no paper, there was a thick layer of dust.

“John? Don’t tell me you cancelled the housekeeper.” Rose looked annoyed. She went into the kitchen. “Ewww,all the food in the refrigerator is rotten.” she declared, slamming it shut. “Doesn’t look like he’s been here in weeks.”

The Doctor shuffled through the papers. “Lots of equations here...can’t quite tell what they’re for.” she pointed to the scribbles. “Was he doing this when you were together?”

“Not that I saw.” she replied. “Let’s check the bedroom and the study.”

Both rooms were in similar condition, except the study had a lot of books on physics and a number of empty tea-stained mugs. 

“His clothes and things are gone. Cleaned out.” Rose reported. “Without saying anything.”

The Doctor said, “Looks like he’s been gone a couple months, by the look of this place. And he left in a hurry.”

Rose said, “Don’t know where he’d go, though. Didn’t have any friends, at least none that stuck around long. Dad gives him an allowance, but it’s not enough to get another flat. Not in London, anyway.”

“Living with someone else then?” The Doctor idly speculated, then saw Rose’s hurt expression.   
“Sorry. Shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“No, if he wants to do...that, it’s fine. Really.” her voice was strained.

Feeling flustered, The Doctor went back to flipping through the papers on the desk. “Did he have a laptop? Don’t see one. Probably took that too.” Towards the bottom of the pile, she ran across a bunch of business cards. “Know anything about these?”

Rose reached out to flip through them. “Business contacts? He did some consulting work. Short term. We'll check them out back at headquarters.”

The Doctor said, “Let’s gather up the papers; there might be something important on them. Are you all right?” She noticed Rose’s haunted look.

“I’m fine, it’s just...weird being back here. Lots of memories.” She tried to force a smile.

Being there was bringing up a lot of memories for the Doctor as well. Traveling with Rose through the universe, thinking she’d be there a lot longer than she was...she couldn’t dwell on that now. She put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “I know how that goes. Let’s get out of here, yeah?”


	7. Chapter 7

At Torchwood, Colin greeted the group at the door. “Bit of a step down from the old place, isn’t it?” she asked Rose. 

“Just a little, yeah,” she admitted. For the first time, she felt a little embarrassed by headquarters. 

“This is Torchwood? I thought it would be all posh and shiny. Not a shitty warehouse.” Luke gestured to the dilapidated exterior.

“We need to lay low, ya wanker.” Colin narrowed his eyes. He asked Sameera, “Why did you bring them here?”

“They were picked up on the can scan,” Sameera said. “And they’d talked to the Doctor. They knew too much.”

“They were helpful to me earlier.” the Doctor added. “I could use the extra hands.”

“Yeah, sorry we’re a bit understaffed at the moment.” Colin led them all inside. He gestured to the two long tables empty except for a series of desktop computers. “It’s just the five of us. Our other two members are on an assignment in Tokyo.” 

The Doctor walked through the tables, surveying her surroundings. The only other furniture was a battered couch in the corner. She poked at a few displays, and looked over some of the analysis equipment.

“Just us then, and the equipment here,” said the Doctor. “So what do we know so far? We know my clone is going to cause a hole in space-time, some time in the next twenty hours. We don’t know how. We know he’s gone from his flat and he left a bunch of papers with equations on them.” she paced idly as she walked, gesturing with her hands. “Any ideas?”

Rose covered her hands in her face as she went through the facts in her head, trying to think of something, anything, that would give a clue to where John had gone. She was overwhelmed; so much had happened in just a few hours. She wanted to sit down and just breathe for a few minutes, but this wasn’t the time.

While she was thinking. Jae Kwang asked, “How would one even create a hole in space-time?”

“Good question! If two supernovas collided, that could cause it, but how would he do that?” she replies.. " If you had enough explosives, maybe, but that's way beyond the technological capability of this planet .“

Rose uncovered her eyes. "Alien tech, maybe? We have a lot of items on hand. He's been here before. He could have swiped something. There's some powerful weapons in there."

The Doctor pointed at her and grinned. "Brilliant! Was there anything else in your flat that he might have had? Any antimatter in the cupboard?"

"No, nothing like that” She grinned a little. This was really starting to feel like old times. The Doctor continued to talk about potential alien devices, but she found herself half-listening, focused more on the Time Lord. She watched the Doctor stride through headquarters as if she owned it, talk her way through the situation with equal parts curiosity and confidence. She seemed gentler than the Doctor she remembered, more open, but the similarities were undeniable.

Rose was struck by the difference between the Doctor and John. John looked like the Doctor, had his memories, talked like him, but the personality was..different. Things that would be noticed except by someone who had known both of them well. The way the Doctor carried herself, the enthusiasm, the joy. She’d had it when she’d known the Doctor before, all those years ago. John was never quite the same. Had a harder edge, been more cynical. He’d always seemed slightly uncomfortable, as if he were wearing ill-fitting clothes. 

Colin’s presence in front of her jolted Rose out of her thoughts. He handed her and Sameera tablets. "Here's the updated inventory of alien tech. Make sure everything is accounted for. I'll call the Cardiff hub, make sure they do the same, just as a precaution." He handed the stack of papers taken from the flat to the other men. "Go through these. See if there's anything that stands out."

"I can help with that." the Doctor said. "I mean, if anyone knew his mind, it would be me. Probably." She glanced in Rose’s direction.

“Come on Sameera, let’s get started. You take the left side of the storeroom, I’ll take the right.” She got up and quickly walked toward the storeroom in the back of the warehouse.

"Slow down, girl, I can barely keep up." Sameera called from three paces behind. When she finally caught up to Rose, she asked. "So...does this change things for you?"

"What do you mean?" Rose stalled. Did Sameera have to poke her nose into everything? 

Sameera rolled her eyes, annoyed by having to spell it out. "With the Doctor being here...and being a she."

"Oh, I haven't even had a chance to think about that. Been occupied with the world ending and all." She lied. Of course, it had crossed her mind. More than once. 

"Right." Sameera gave her a sly grin. "And that's why you took her up to your old flat? What were you doing up there?"

"Nothing!" she felt herself blushing and hoped Sameera wouldn't notice. "I mean, we were looking for John."

"Took an awful lot of time to realize he wasn't there, didn't it?" Sameera gave her a sly grin.

“We were investigating.” As she opened the storeroom door, Rose gave her a light shove. "Get to work."

It wasn’t the Doctor’s outer appearance that gave Rose pause. That didn’t matter to her. It never had. It was why she’d come, and what she would do when the danger had passed. The Doctor had been happy to see her, but she certainly hadn’t been expecting it. Was anything still possible between them or was the Doctor simply dropping in to save the universe?

Rose had already been left behind before. She didn’t want to invest too much of her heart if it was going to happen again. 

\--  
Two hours later, Rose and Sameera rejoined the rest of the group. "Nothing missing except some low grade mining equipment and an amphibious suit," Rose reported. "Nothing that would cause that type of destruction."

"Cardiff was good too," Colin said.

"I kind of followed some of the stuff on the papers. Some of those equations, I had no idea what they were for." Jae-Kwang said.

The Doctor said. "Okay, so John doesn't have alien technology. He can't harness natural phenomena. So in order to rip a hole in space-time, he'd have to build something. It would have to be something massive, something that would be hard to miss."

"There were a bunch of business cards with the papers. Maybe he's teamed up with some corporation? Gave him parts and tools?" Luke said.

"Oi, listen to the conspiracy theorist here. Why would a corporation want to destroy the planet? That's their whole market base," Sameera remarked.

"Maybe they're in cahoots with aliens!" Luke fired back. “What kind of ETs are you hiding here?”

"Quiet, you lot," the Doctor interrupted. "But what if he went to some company, and misled them? Told him he was building something else? But they'd a license for that, or risk getting shut down?"

"Maybe they already have one. Lots of megacorps are good at bribing the right people, getting licenses through," Rose said. "We'll need to look through the database, see if there's anything that looks unusual."

"You have access to that?" Jae-Kwang's eyes widened.

"Just because we're not all shiny and posh here doesn't mean we don't know how to hack into secure databases," Colin replied.

"But that's gonna take ages!" Sameera said. "We don't have that kind of time."

"What, going through by hand? Yeah. But I can write some queries. Make the process much faster." Jae-Kwang smiled.

"Get to it. Any one of those." Colin pointed to a row of computers at a table.

"I can check out the business cards."Luke added. " Look for hidden facilities, anything shady."

"All right. " Colin said. "Rose, let's do the same for every large corporation with a presence in England-especially Stowber. I don't trust that bastard in the least."

The Doctor held up her hand. "Actually, can I borrow Rose for a moment? Quick chat," Sameera gave Rose a cheeky grin. Rose frowned back at her.

"Yeah, I'll get started." Colin sat down at a computer. The Doctor grabbed Rose’s hand and led her over to the couch at the corner of the warehouse. Rose’s heart skipped a beat. What was this about?

When they sat down, the Doctor leaned towards Rose, looking at her with an intense gaze. "Look, I know you didn't want to have this conversation in front of everyone, but I need to know what happened between you two. I mean, why would he want to do this?"

The feeling of dread filled her again. "I don't know. And what does our relationship have anything to do with it?" She suddenly felt a rush of fear. What if this was her fault, somehow? What if she had stayed with him? 

"Nothing, maybe. But we can't find him, we've been lookin' for hours with no leads, and I have nothin' to go on. We don't have a lot of time. Anything you tell me might be helpful." The Doctor’s expression softened, more pleading than demanding.

Rose sighed. She hadn't talked to anyone about the breakup in detail except for her mum, and telling the Doctor felt more difficult. She took a deep breath before beginning.

"It was good the first couple years. It was a big adjustment for him, and there were a few rough spots, but we were happy. Then things started to change, slowly. He'd get angry all the time. It got to the point where the slightest little thing would set him off. He'd go on these rants, about how his brain was too slow, he hated being stuck in one place and time, having a job, living an ordinary life. We didn't go out anymore. Stopped inviting friends over because I never knew when he was going to freak out.

“He quit Torchwood after a few months. Had a big fight with the team. The biologist at the time wanted to find out more about him, so she ran some tests. Nothing crazy, just some blood tests, cognitive ability. He didn’t like being treated like a specimen. 

"I thought it was just being domestic that didn't suit him. I thought he'd like to travel more. We spent a year as nomads, kind of. Went hiking in South America, travelled through Asia, spent a few weeks in each of the major cities. After a while, he was even more miserable. It was exhausting, constantly traveling as a human. So we came back."

The Doctor was quiet for a few moments. "I don't understand." her voice was soft. "He was full of rage when he was created, yeah. But being with you...that should have made him happy. Overjoyed in fact.” She thought she saw a glimmer of sadness in the Doctor’s expression. "Maybe he was having a rough time for a bit?"

"It went on for years, though. I tried so hard. Tried to get him other jobs he might find interesting-he'd quit those too. Suggested an exercise routine, different ways to keep himself occupied. He was still angry. I was constantly miserable, and we fought a lot. My being there wasn't helping him and...I couldn't do it anymore." Rose swallowed hard, forcing down the bile in her chest.

"How'd he take it?"

"He begged me to stay. Said I was the only thing that made his existence tolerable. Didn't want to leave him. Hardest thing I ever did, but I don't know if my staying would have been good for either of us.” she fought back tears. “Suggested couples counseling if he was serious about me staying,, but I’d schedule a session and he wouldn’t show up. We’ve mostly talked by text since then. He doesn’t say a lot. And I feel awful, because he doesn’t have anyone else. He must be so lonely.”

"So angry and isolated...a combination prone to causing destruction." the Doctor said.

"Yeah." Rose looked down. The guilt intensified. It sounded awful.

“I’m so sorry, Rose.” the Doctor said, and the sadness in her expression was unambiguous. “I never expected this to happen. How are _you_ feeling about it?”

“Better than I was, actually.” she admitted, the words spilling out of her. “I’m not constantly on edge anymore. I don’t dread coming home. I’ve reconnected with friends, gettin’ exercise. I mean, I still miss him sometimes, but I’m trying not to dwell on it too much.”

The Doctor took her hands. " Don't worry, we're going to figure out how to fix it. Let's see how the others are doing." With that, she got up and headed back towards the group in long, quick strides. Rose followed her, wondering if by fixing, she meant preventing the hole, or her and John’s relationship. Or both.

The rest of the group wasn’t having much success.

"I was able to narrow down all licenses from the past year. Still going through them. Not even sure what terms to use." Jae Kwang furrowed his brow.

"Can you search by size? Or energy usage? Whatever he's building, gonna take massive amounts of energy." The Doctor suggested.

"I'll give it a shot." he replied.

"Let me take a look at the business cards. I might recognize some of the names," Rose said. After that conversation, she wanted to make herself useful, and keep her mind off of all actual and potential guilt. She flipped through them. She knew most of the companies-John had worked with them years ago. 

There was one she didn't recognize: a simple card with a blue-green star logo. “Ceylon Technologies? Anyone hear of them?"

They shook their heads. Rose typed in the name into Google. "That's odd. There's nothing about them. No website, no address, no trade information, nothing."

"Maybe they failed and weren't around long enough to leave a digital footprint?" Sameera asked.

"Or maybe they have something to hide." Luke said. "Do we have access to legal filings?"

"Of course we do." Colin harrumped. He pulled up a screen and started typing. "Filing for incorporation, two years ago...wait a minute.." he typed quickly. "Subsidiary of Stowber Limited. Headquarters is in Stratton, wherever that is." He turned to Sameera. "Go find out what's up there."

"Stowber. You mentioned them before. Who are they?" the Doctor asked.

"The biggest corporation in England. They make the SecDrones and the Nets." Colin replied. "The CEO, Harold Stowber, don't trust him. Shady as hell. Met him at an event we were working once. He went on and on about his how high his IQ was and how much smarter he was than all of us. I nearly punched him."

Rose added, "After the fall of Cybus Industries, there was a huge vacuum in the tech sector. Stowber was a tiny company making home security systems. After the first Cybermen attacks, everyone started buying them and they got a big boost. Then, after Birmingham, they got the contract to do the SecDrones. Now they're into a little of everything...home automation, biotechnology, self-driving cars, smart appliances, smart construction equipment, space exploration, medical diagnostic equipment. They're huge."

Luke frowned. "It's rigged. They have the most money, so they use the licensing system to keep other companies from innovating. Meanwhile, they know who to bribe to get their licenses through. Harold Stowber put a lot of money in the re-election campaigns of influential MPs.”

Rose frowned at him. "Don't you ever stop with the conspiracy theories?"

"No, no, this is good." The Doctor said. "A conspiracy theorist is an expert on putting pieces together based on the most tenuous of connections. And the pieces of this puzzle are scattered everywhere."

Sameera looked up from the screen. "Ceylon Technologies' only asset is a data centre. Probably supporting Stowber applications. Sorry, another dead end."

"No, wait." Jae-Kwang said. "You said they were in Stratton?"

"Yeah, why?"

"That supposed data centre never existed." he typed briefly, and exclaimed "Here!" He showed them a _Times_ article. "They built the building, then announced they were relocating the data centre to India. The people in the town were pissed off because it was supposed to bring in a ton of jobs. One of my old classmates told me about it. His family's in Stratton. He was going to apply for a job there after he graduated. He went on and on about it, saying he was robbed."

"It's still listed as a data centre in official records." Sameera said. "Doctor, you said whatever this is, it would use massive amounts of energy?" The Doctor nodded. "I'm going to get into the Big Six grids, see what's happening up there."

"Is there any system can't hack into?" Jae-Kwang was awed.

"Nope." Rose smiled. “Can you check the tech licenses for any belonging to them?”

“Sure” he began typing. “One license, issued February of this year.” He frowned. “Something called Project Algernon. No details beyond that, just the date and the people who signed off on it. A bloke named Hofstader is the principal.” He looked up, frowning. “The details are redacted. Susicious, no?”

“Some corporations do that, to prevent their competitors from stealing trade secrets.” Sameera said. Her face suddenly lit up. "Look at this! The allegedly abandoned data centre is lighting up like a Christmas tree."

"Big secret project using lots of energy in an abandoned building, with a possible tie to John. We need to get there. Now." The Doctor said. "Where is Stratton?"

"No clue." Sameera pulled up a map. "Shit, it's almost at the border of Scotland. It's gonna be a four hour drive."

"Then we better leave straight away.” Colin said. "Rose, Sameera, pack up. Let’s  
see what’s happening at this supposed data centre."

The three of them gathered their essential field work supplies-weapons, sensors, tracking equipment, medical supplies. On her way to the van, Colin took Rose aside.

“Are you going to be all right? Facing him, I mean,” he asked.

Her hesitation was so slight, and the forced evenness of her tone would have convinced most people. “I’ll be fine.”

But Colin knew her better than that. His skeptical expression gave way to a piercing stare. “If at any point it is not fine, tell me immediately. If the Doctor’s right, he needs to be stopped at all costs. Seven billion people’s lives are at stake at this planet alone. If you’re part of the operation, and we need to take” his brow furrowed “extreme measures, I need to know you’ll have no hesitation.” 

“Yeah, of course.” she tried to make it sound convincing. “Besides, I think I’d have a better chance at getting through to him than you do.”

Satisfied, Colin went back into the warehouse. Facing John was the last thing she wanted to do, but they were short-handed in experienced people, and she knew him better than anyone else, with the possible exception of the Doctor. She believed she could use a lethal weapon against him, but when she pictured doing it-watching him fall and go lifeless at her hand-her entire body shuddered. 

She drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and told herself it wouldn’t come to that. The Doctor would find a way to save him. But the one person the Doctor had never been good at saving was herself.


	8. Chapter 8

The van hummed along as they weaved their way through out of the city. The Torchwood crew were chatting among themselves, planning a strategy for their arrival. The Doctor, for once, was quiet, lost in thought.

She thought back to the day on the _Crucible_, when John was created,. Stepping out of the repaired TARDIS, holding a weapon. Wiping out an entire fleet of Daleks in moments. All that rage in his eyes. She’d been looking back at herself, and her first reaction was fear. 

Was that how her enemies saw her? Her allies? Her friends? The people of the Gamma Forest had called her “Mighty Warrior”. She tried to bury that part of herself so deeply, trying to suppress it. 

She’d thought whatever fury contained within John, Rose would be able to fix. At least, that was what her previous incarnation had told himself when he brought them back here. Had she made a horrible mistake in doing so? Was there something in him she hadn't seen? Self-doubt gnawed at her.

He was angry about being human and being stuck on this planet. She could understand that. Had the breakup triggered this? Causing something so catastrophic as to unravel the fabric of this universe-he couldn't be that vindictive, could he? Perhaps there was another explanation. Maybe someone at this Ceylon Technologies was forcing him into this?

She fidgeted in her seat and looked out the window. They were out of London proper now, into the surrounding areas. The van speeded up as traffic thinned out. Sameera in the front passenger seat with Colin in the driver's seat, though he was using the auto-nav so he wasn't distracted while they talked. Rose was sitting next to her again, but still in the throes of planning with her coworkers. Her expression seemed different than it had at headquarters; pained, her lips forming a tight line. She was in a tough spot, and the Doctor would do anything to make it up to her.

The Doctor bounced her leg; she wasn't used to being the passenger for a long trip, and she didn't like not being in control. She glanced over at Jae-Kwang and Luke, who were whispering to each other.

"You boys all right?" she asked. "It's a lot to take in."

"That's an understatement." Luke said. "I'm sittin' here, talking to a proper alien, nearly got captured by the cans, and on a mission with a secret vigilante group."

She nodded. "It's always a shock. When I first met Rose, all the mannequins in her shop came to life. Then a plastic arm showed up at her flat."

"Is that how you know her?" he gestured to Rose. "Is she an alien too?"

Rose interrupted her conversation to face them. "No, I'm an ordinary human. Used to travel with the Doctor though" She shot a gentle smile at the Doctor.

"We're both from a parallel universe. Ended up here by accident. We were here for the first Cybermen attack, actually. Helped stop it. Then Rose got stuck here and...well, it's a long story." She noticed Rose's expression change the corners of her lips turned down for a split second, barely long enough to notice. 

"And this guy we're trying to stop...how is he your clone?" Luke stared at the Doctor, as if trying to figure out her inner workings.

"Oh! A little trick my people use to cheat death.” The Doctor grinned.” If I die, I can get a whole new body. Just happened to me a few months ago, in fact." 

"This is him, by the way." Rose pulled out her phone and showed them a picture. "If you see him when we get to the data centre."

"Holy shit." Jae-Kwang grabbed the phone. "He's..that's completely different from the way you look now, Doctor."

"You should have seen the last body. I was an older bloke. Ridiculous eyebrows."

"Can't quite see it." Rose gave her a wider smile.. "I mean, I know you're old, but..."

"It happens. Just like I told you before, a completely random process.”: she shrugged. “Before him, I was a young- looking fellow with a big chin and a penchant for fezzes. Surprised I needed to shave at all." 

"Hey, can we stop for some takeaway on our way there? I'm starving." Jae-Kwang called to the front of the van.

"We're on our way to save the world, and you want to stop for food?" Colin said in disgust. "Are you daft? No!”

Rose reached into the bag at her feet and took out several packages. "Here, try one of these. It's like a protein bar, only better. We use them when we're on the go." she handed one to each of the men. "Doctor, want one?"  
"Sure." She opened the package and took a bite. She couldn't place the flavor-something similar to blueberries- but it was delicious. "This is really good! I love it!"

"Thanks," she said "Dad developed these. He's working on selling them to the military. He always needs a new project."

“Give him my compliments.” The Doctor said. “Speaking of your dad, is he still involved with Torchwood?”

“No,” Rose replied. “After the Cybermen attacks, President Alexander demanded investigations into Lumic and Cybus Industries, and they made a big deal of my dad’s ties to them. His name was dragged through the mud.”

“But he tried to stop Lumic!” the Doctor protested, “He was with us to stop the Cybermen.”

“And only a few people knew that,” Rose said. “Then questions started coming up about Mum. He’d told the press before his wife had been Cyber-converted, and he got a lot of questions on if the process could be undone. Some people thought he was flat out lying. I was lucky I didn’t officially exist here. Anyway, after the investigation it got so bad he, Mum, and Tony had to leave the country. They live in Switzerland now. They come back and visit a few times a year.”

“You must miss them.” Poor Rose. She’d been through a lot since they’d seen each other last.

“I do, but they’re enjoying living in Geneva. Tony’s picked up French and German like that.“ she snapped her fingers. “And it’s easier for Mum too. She doesn’t have to pretend to be the person her and Dad’s friends knew. She got to start over.”

“Wait. Is your dad Pete Ty….” Luke started, but shut his mouth when he saw Rose glaring at him. 

“I’m glad to hear that about your mum,” The Doctor said. “Can I get a couple more of those bars? They'd be perfect for Graham. He's always getting on my case about how we don't always stop to eat. 'Doc, we're missing dinner again?'" she tried not to laugh. "Or if we do stop to eat and he doesn't like the food. He was not a fan of Martian cuisine."

"Graham? Is that who you're traveling with now?" Rose asked.

"Got a whole team this time around!" she exclaimed. "Graham's all right, really. He just complains a bit. Then there's Ryan, he's brilliant with machines. Caring. Good at figuring things out. And Yaz...she reminds me a lot of you, actually." She put a hand on Rose's arm. "Same wonder in her eyes when she sees something new. Clever. Never backs down from danger. Always wants to do what’s right." She hadn’t seen the similarities between them, until seeing Rose again. Must be why of the three of them, she felt closest to Yaz. It wasn’t exactly the same type of feeling, of course. 

"But you didn't bring them with you? Was it because of the Time Ring, or whatever it was called?" Rose asked. 

"I could have. But the Time Lords couldn't tell me about where I was going, what was present before the hole. I didn't know if would even be inhabitable by humans. Could have gone to a planet with a methane atmosphere." That was true. True-ish. If she'd known where she was going, would she have brought the fam? She would have loved to introduce them to Rose, but the situation with the clone-she felt responsible for what he'd done. 

No, they definitely did not need to see that.

"You mentioned all blokes. Have you been a woman before?" Luke had scarfed down one bar and was going for seconds.

"Yeah. My people, not that big on sticking to one gender. We can switch from one regeneration to the next. This is my first time being female, though. I like bein’ me, but you never know what kind of knobs are going to look down on you for it. "

"Yeah, I think that'd be hard, especially going to past Earth." Rose remarked. "I mean, I lived in modern times and got all sorts of put downs. Girls can't do maths, we got stuck in the lower paying jobs in the shop."

"Oh, don't get me started!" the Doctor exclaimed. "King James VI tried to drown me for being a witch! Good thing I can hold my breath for a long time. Speaking of kings, King Pyheria of the Third Human Empire wanted to add me to his harem. I had to wear this skimpy outfit, barely covered anything!"

"You, as a concubine? I would have liked to see that!" Rose grinned.

"You would?!" The Doctor blushed, thinking of how little had been left to the imagination. The image of Rose looking at her the way Pyheria had flashed through her mind. She pushed it out of her thoughts. _That was a long time ago. Shouldn't be thinking of her like that_.

"Oh, no, no, no, I didn't mean it like that. I mean....I mean..." she stammered. "It's just hard to picture. Not that I tried picturing anything." Sameera turned around from the front seat and raised her eyebrows at Rose, who mouthed something back the Doctor didn't catch.

Eager to get off the subject, the Doctor continued. "Fortunately, I didn't have to stay there for long. My friends rescued me. Good thing too, I was on the verge of being beheaded.  
"Pyheria said I talked too much. King James said the same thing, in fact."

Rose laughed. "And he didn't figure that out within five minutes of meeting you?"

"He was rather daft." The Doctor joined her laughter, and relief washed over her. Suddenly aware of how close she was sitting to Rose, she moved slightly away, pressing herself into the van’s side.

If Rose noticed, she didn’t show it. She called to Colin "How much longer til we arrive?"

"At least another two hours." Colin replied. "Hey Doctor, I was wondering about Mickey. Met him when I was just a rookie with Torchwood. Great bloke. He went back to your universe, right? How's he doing?"

"Oh, he is great! A freelance alien hunter." She turned back to Rose. "You know, he ended up marrying Martha Jones!"

"Oh, wow! She was brilliant." Rose smiled. "When did you see him last?"

"It's been..a while." the Doctor admitted. "Y’know how it is, you get busy."

Undeterred, Rose raised an eyebrow. "How long is a while?" 

"Well, I saw him...right before I regenerated. From when I was him." she gestured to Rose's phone.

"So that's been what for you, Twenty years? Thirty?"

"More like...thirteen hundred, give or take."

Rose’s eyes widened in shock. "All that time, and you never saw him?" 

"Well, he and I never got on. Not really."

"I know, but he thought a lot of you. Really. And so did Martha." Rose said. "Did you forget about them?"

"I never forget anyone." the Doctor replied, feeling defensive. "But they needed to be able to move on with their lives, without me dropping in every so often."

“I see.” Rose was quiet for a moment, lost in thought. Finally she spoke. “Is that what would have happened to me, if I’d never gotten stranded in this universe? Taken off one day, never to be seen again?”

“Oh, no, of course not.” the Doctor’s eyes were locked with hers. “But you were never going to leave, were you?”

“Didn’t plan to.” She looked away. “But you brought me back here. Me and him.” 

The Doctor was aware everyone was staring, as if waiting for one of them, or both, to erupt in anger. She took a deep breath. “Wasn’t trying to get rid of you. Wouldn’t have ever done that. Just thought it was for the best. The dimensional retroclosure didn’t give me a lot of time to make a decision, and I needed to act quickly.”

Rose wouldn’t look at her. “But you never asked.” 

The Doctor was silent for a moment. It was true, and she didn’t like to be reminded of it. If it was anyone else, she would have fired off a justification, or tried to redirect the conversation. But this was Rose; she knew better. She deserved the truth, or something close to it.

“I probably should’ve,” she admitted. “But I wanted to give you the life you deserved.”

“Right,” her lips curled into a smile, but there was an air of resignation about her. “Yeah, you’re right. Probably was for the best.” 

The Doctor felt like an idiot again. “Rose, look. I…”

“No, it’s okay.” Rose cut her off. “I understand. You did what you had to. It’s okay.”

Sameera broke in to ask Rose a question, and Rose turned to eagerly her. The Doctor slumped in her seat. Seeing her dear friend after all these years, and she’d managed to mess that up yet again. She was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is probably a little self-indulgent, but it's something IMHO would only exist in fan fiction. A chapter like this would probably not exist in a book due to pacing issues, and these scenes would never exist in an episode. That is one of the beautiful parts about fan fiction, and I wholeheartedly embrace it.


	9. Chapter 9

At the last turn to the Ceylon data centre, the van ground to a halt.

The data centre was in an isolated part of countryside, several kilometers outside Stratton proper. A single two-lane road cut through a largely wooded area. According to the satnav, they were just two kilometers away. They needed to turn off the main road onto a narrow lane.

But the van wouldn’t turn.

In the fading light, Rose was able to make out a signpost and the surrounding trees, largely bare of leaves. She heard Colin muttering to himself.

“This is…fucked up. We can’t make the turn. The car won’t physically do it. “

“Did you take it out of autonav?” asked Sameera.

“Of course I did! Still not doing shit!” he pounded the dashboard. “Don’t understand it. The car’s on, everything’s working, but it won’t left me turn.”

The Doctor stared at the dashboard. “You know, I’ve seen something like this before. On my Earth, people had these things to rid their cars of pollution, but then it took control of the cars. So maybe something external is controlling the van.”

“Shit, the autonav is made by Stowber!” Sameera said. “Do you think it’s stopping the van because it doesn’t want us there?

The Doctor scanned the dashboard and controls with the sonic. “Looks like the autonav is still on, even though it says disabled. I can try turning it off, but it may switch on and try something even more nefarious. With the ATMOS, cars were sending their passengers over cliffs.”

Sameera looked at the satnav. “It’s not that far. Why don’t we walk?”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Colin was able to reverse the van and pull over to the side. Rose hopped out of the van, apologizing quietly for brushing against the Doctor’s arm. She hadn’t said much for the last half of the trip. Rose hoped she hadn’t been too hard on her.  
Intellectually, she understood why the Doctor had chosen to leave her here with John, but she couldn’t help but feel a sting of disappointment.

At first, she’d been angry for a while after the Doctor left them in this universe. Vanished into the TARDIS without even a proper goodbye. She got over it with time, and by putting her energy into John. Enjoying the relationship with him that the Doctor wouldn’t give her. In those early days, she was glad to be here, in this universe, with him.

But sometimes, particularly in the last year, she’d wondered: what if she’d refused to stay with John? She’d been uncertain, that day on the beach. But the pressure that surrounded her from the three of them-the Doctor, John, and Donna had tipped the balance. Nothing they said outright, but glances in her direction, little smiles of approval-accepting John was what was expected of her. 

_He’s too dangerous to be left on his own._

_He needs you._

And maybe if she’d said no, back then, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Colin was right; they needed to fix it, even if they had to take a drastic solution.

And now this Doctor, who smiled at her the way her previous incarnation had, who made her feel the same way… she shook her head. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. 

“Rose, you okay?” Sameera asked. There was a ring of concern in her voice.

“Yeah, just thinkin’.” She should get to work; it would give her something to focus on. She rubed her hands together for wamth. It was colder here than it was in London, and she hadn’t brought gloves. Using her phone as a torch, Rose started pulling out duffel bags out of the trunk. “Proper torches are in here.” She handed Sameera one of the bags. 

“And the weapons.” Sameera pulled out a laser gun, running her hand over the barrel. “Oh, perfect. Lightweight and effective.” 

“No, no, no, what are you doing? No guns!” The Doctor’s expression was filled with disgust as she saw them.. Luke, trailing behind her, rolled his eyes. 

“Are you daft?” Sameera was incredulous.. Her arm fell to her side, but her hand remained curled around the grip.

“Yes, but not about this. “Put that down!” She demanded, meeting Sameera’s eyes with a steely gaze. She was poised in tension like a cobra, ready to strike.

“Don’t listen to her, Sameera.” Colin looked up from the pack he was holding. “Doctor, you said yourself it was dangerous. We’re not going in unarmed.” Rose’s stomach clenched. John had never had the vitriolic dislike of guns the Doctor had. And Colin always wanted them armed to the teeth. Nobody was going to talk him into anything else. 

The Doctor put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been walking into danger unarmed for hundreds of years!” . 

He snorted. “What are we going to do, walk in and ask nicely not to destroy the planet?”

Annoyed, she approached Colin, standing a few inches in front of him, and stuck her finger in his chest.. “I’d rather be daft than have no principles. I don’t like killing and I don’t like guns!”

“And you know what I don’t like? Dead teammates!” he matched every ounce of her ferocity ““I’ve had too many of those already. Birmingham, there were six of us trapped in a car park, Cybermen everywhere. I was the only one that survived. My team, some of my best mates, gone in hours. It would have been me too if I hadn’t had a lot of guns! What we went through, that was war! You ever been to war, Doctor?”

Her nostrils flared with righteous anger. “Don’t you dare lecture me about wars! I was in a war to end all wars! A war with a larger scale than you can possibly imagine! You survive, but the war-the killing-leaves a scar on you. It’s not the solution!”

“I will not send my people into a situation where they’ll be sitting ducks! I’m in charge of this operation! We go in armed! That is an order!” He glared at the Doctor, daring her to challenge him further. 

“I don’t take orders from you..” the Doctor began, but Rose stepped in between them, as much as she could. She needed to defuse them, now. And having spent years with the Doctor’s clone, she was an expert. 

“Doctor,” she said “Listen to him. Look, the laser guns have a low power setting where we can render someone unconscious. We don’t have to kill a single person. There’s a good chance they’ll have private security drones here, and the sonic may not be able to take them all out. You know how fast they are. But they’re not alive. Nobody dies.”

The Doctor looked at her as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.. “Rose, you know better than this. We’re here to save people, not hurt them. Is this what Torchwood has done to you?”

“They didn’t have to.” Rose spat out, her irritation vaulted into anger. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I turned a whole fleet of Daleks into dust.” The Doctor turned away, staring at the ground. When she didn’t reply, Rose added. “How many Daleks have you destroyed? How many Cybermen? How many others?”

The Doctor looked up. Hazel eyes flickered briefly with anger, then settled on resignation as she looked from Rose to Colin, and back again. “All right.” she finally said, her teeth bared. “But we’re going to lay some ground rules. One, only the Torchwood people are armed. Two, no shooting to kill. Low power mode or whatever it is. Three, nobody so much as points a gun at my clone. At all. I will deal with him.”

“But what if…” Colin began.

“No.” Her firm tone allowed for no arguments. “ Come on, let’s go.” She stomped off down the lane towards Ceylon. 

Rose put her hand to her mouth, wondering if she’d said too much. Recovering, she turned to the rest of the group and gave a shrug, trying to act like pissing off Time Lords was a normal part of her day. “Sorry. She’s always been...passionate about guns.”

“Don’t know that we should listen to her.” Colin looked directly at Rose, his frown reminding him of their earlier conversation. . 

“Stopped me from shooting a can. Earlier today.” Luke volunteered. 

Rose shook her head. “She’ll be fine. Let’s catch up with her.” She grabbed a small laser pistol, slung a duffel bag over her shoulder, and started walking down the lane, trying to catch up to the blonde figure ahead of her.

\--  
It was half a kilometer before Rose caught up with the Doctor. She was slowed down by the weight of the bag, and the Time Lord was surprisingly fast given how short her legs were. Rose had tucked the pistol into her waistband. Barely noticeable, as if the lack of visibility was a form of appeasement. 

The Doctor was five metres in front of her, scanning the air with the sonic. “Hey,” she tensed as she called out. “Torch?”

The Doctor stopped, and turned around, giving her a weak smile “Yeah, thanks.” Their hands slightly touched as she took the proffered torch. “Been scannin’ for traps.” Her tone was even and calm..

She didn’t seem to be angry anymore.. “Find anything?” Rose asked. 

“Nope. Probably not expecting too many people way out here. The auto-nav...confirms there’s something to hide though, right?”

“Definitely suspicious.” She nodded quickly in agreement. She waited for the Doctor to say something else, but she was silent, staring ahead down the lane. They walked along in uncomfortable silence, the rest of the group lagging behind, 

The Doctor wasn’t a fan of weapons, but Rose’s feelings towards them had evolved over the years. They’d saved her life countless times. Her friends’ lives. Her teammates’ lives. She didn’t want to fight, not in this sliver of time they had together, but she wasn’t going to blindly obey, either. 

On the other hand, maybe she’d been too harsh. She drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry...about what I said earlier.”

She expected the Doctor to go full-on into anger again. The image of John in a rage flashed through her mind. But instead, her shoulders slumped, and her pace slowed, as if she was carrying a heavy load. “It’s all right, Rose. I know. Just...thinkin’ about...the past. The last time I saw you.”

She didn’t have to explain further. Aboard the _Crucible_, facing Davros. _Your children of time, transformed into murderers._ The Doctor had insisted on arguing with him, but she could tell he’d been rattled..

“It’s just that...no matter what I do, it tends to happen, when people are around me long enough. Sometimes even when they’re not..”The Doctor continued. “Trained the whole human race to wipe out an alien invasion once. It had to do with Apollo 11.” she sighed. “It’s just that...I try to be good.” 

“But you are good,” Rose said. ”Look at all the people, species, civilizations you’ve saved.” 

“Yeah, but…” she trailed off, looking into the distance. “The fam, my friends back in my universe.. “They look at me like I can do no wrong, like I hung the stars in the sky.. If they really knew me, would they feel the same?”

“I know you.” Rose reminded her. “And I like you.” 

The Doctor looked over and gave her a genuine smile. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” 

“Say the right thing. I tend to ramble a lot in this regeneration, say a lot of things that don’t make any sense, or aren’t important. It’s horribly awkward.” 

“I noticed.” she laughed softly. She reached out her hand. The Doctor took it, moving her sonic to the hand holding the torch. She The Doctor’s warm fingers were a shock to her cold ones as they intertwined. Her heart swelled, and the tension in her eased like a slackened spring. 

_It was now_, she thought, to say what had been in the back of her mind since seeing her in the Tube station, the things between them left unsaid, then and now. She buzzed with nervous energy as she gathered her thoughts. 

"Doctor, do you...can you..“ She stopped, having heard a low buzz, and filled with dread. Trouble, not to mention terrible timing. “Did you hear that?” 

_She nodded. “Comin’ from straight ahead.” The Doctor broke into a sprint as the drone came into view. Activating the sonic, she disabled it, and it to the ground with a thunk. _

__

__

The rest of the group ran to catch up. “It’s blue. Private security. Probably on patrol around the grounds.” Sameera said. “Don’t get too excited, there’ll be more.” 

A few seconds later, the buzzing noise filled the air. Rose whirled around. Six drones closing in at all sides. “And there they are!” 

"Everyone spread out!” Sameera cried, rushing ahead. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Doctor run towards a drone, sonic in hand. Rose ran into the woods at the side of the lane, feeling the duffel bag slam against her back. She’d be harder to catch among the trees. She pulled her gun out as she ran, hearing the laser fire from her teammates. Suddenly she felt her foot catch on a tree root and she went sprawling to the ground. She felt a burst of pain from her knee. She got up as quickly as she could, supporting herself against a tree trunk. 

Through the trees, she saw the Doctor facing one of the drones. The sonic was lit but the drone was advancing; probably adapted, she thought. She raised the gun and fired, sending the drone to the ground. 

The buzzing stopped. She saw the scattered wreckage of a few, but couldn’t tell how many. The Doctor caught sight of her and rushed through the trees, nearly hitting her head on low branches. 

“Rose!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t see where you went at first! Are you all right?” 

“Yeah. Tripped over a root. Don’t think it’s serious.” she took a few experimental steps. Not bad, and she had pain medication in her bag. “Think I’ll survive.” 

The Doctor smiled, noticeably relaxed. “Look at you. Rose Tyler. Tough as nails. Nothing stops you.” 

“Damn right.” she smiled back. “Didn’t stop me from taking out that drone." 

“Yeah, got that.” the Doctor’s lips were pursed in a frown, unhappy with the reminder. After a moment, she added, in a small voice. “Thank you.” 

Colin, and Jae-Kwang came running up behind the Doctor. “Bad news. We got most of the cans, but one got away-with Luke and Sameera.” Colin said gravely. “It was over so quickly. Didn’t even notice until they were being carried off.” 

“Carried off?” Her stomach dropped. 

“Never seen anything like it. It was a floating Net. Can had a tether.” His voice full of regret. “They were taken in the direction of the building, straight ahead. If I’d just taken a second to turn around.” 

“’S alright. Not your fault.” The Doctor assured him. “I’ll bet they’re being held in the data centre. The can was headed in that direction. There’s no other buildings nearby. If the security people wanted intruders dead, they would be already." 

“Then let’s get them out!” Jae-Kwang said. “I’ve got all my tools with me. I can break people out of nearly anything!” 

“Agreed. We don’t know how long they’ll be held there, or what will be done to them.” The Doctor said. “It shouldn’t be too much further. Rose, can you walk?" 

“Yeah,” she walked with only a slight limp, trying to avoid wincing. “Probably can’t run though. At least not right now. If any more drones come, I’m screwed.” 

“Not gonna let that happen.” The Doctor took her arm to provide support. “Let’s get a shift on!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was a little concerned that it would be too out of character for the Doctor to acquiesce on the guns. On the other hand, who better to call her on her shit than Rose?
> 
> Next chapter will likely be a day late as I will be traveling next Sunday. Enjoy, and have a great week!


	10. Chapter 10

Ceylon Technologies was a large, squat concrete building, two stories tall, with few windows. The building was dark except for a few lights on the top floor. The unlit exterior made it difficult to discern any other features of note. Rose’s knee was almost completely better by the time they got to the glass entrance doors.

“See anything unusual?” Colin asked. “Anyone in there?”

“Nope, not.” Rose replied, peering through the glass doors. She was trying not to pay attention the quickening in her pulse and the quivering of her stomach. _John could be in there_, she thought. She still had no idea what she’d say when she faced him, especially in the Doctor’s presence.

Rose thought, _Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’s not here. I won’t have to see him._ But she knew better. 

The Doctor easily opened the front door with the sonic, and they entered a bare lobby. Not just of people, but of furniture, decoration, and more importantly, drones. The only source of lighting, other than dim recessed bulbs, were lit elevator buttons across from the entrance. The only sign the place wasn’t completely abandoned were two cameras in the upper corners. Rose easily took them out with the eraser. The place felt eerie, and the emptiness made it worse. 

“Rude. No place for visitors to sit.” The Doctor scrunched her nose.“Hello?” she called. Nobody answered. 

“That went too easy.” Jae-Kwang still looked shaken. “Shouldn’t we have set off some sort of security alarm when we entered?”

“They might have thought the drones were enough.” Colin remarked. “False sense of security.”

“Either way, we should proceed with the utmost caution. Whoever runs this place is bound to notice a bunch of drones were destroyed.” The Doctor said. “Colin, you and Jae-Kwang head upstairs and look for the others. Rose and I will look around down here. I need to see what this Project Algernon is.”

The Doctor was all business started by looking through the offices. Most of them were as empty as the lobby. After going through three rooms, they found one with a desk and a computer. The Doctor scrolled through the documents while Rose kept searching the office. There wasn’t really much to look at, but it was an outlet for her nervous energy.

“Nothing else here, other than a shit-ton of highlighters.” She finally said, and looked over the Doctor’s shoulder. “What’s this?”

“Emails. Only thing I’ve been able to find on this computer. No plans, no discussion of the project. Strange. Lots of angry ones over breach of contract.”

“Is he mentioned?”

“Not yet. Looks like…” the Doctor went through a few of them. “Construction companies. A few trades.”

“Can I see?” The Doctor scooted over, and Rose flipped through several of the attachments, studying them. “Hmmm. For all of these, the company hired to do the work did so for a few weeks or maybe a month. Then Ceylon fired them. They couldn’t have all been rubbish.” She looked to the Doctor. “I wonder if they got fired so they wouldn’t find out too much. I’ve heard of that happening before.”

“I think you’re right!” the Doctor agreed. “But nothin’ it says here gives us an idea of what they’re doing either. Two built a large platform, some orders for steel delivery, some wiring upgrades. Must’ve been keeping most of the staff in the dark too.” She scrolled through a few PDFs of invoices.

Rose pointed to the screen. “Four of the last five mention work being performed in the sub-basement. That must be where Project Algernon is.”

“Good thinking! Let’s head down.”

\--  
The lobby elevator did not go lower than the first floor, but they found stairs leading downwards. The Doctor went first, Rose following closely at her heels.

They found a door at the first landing, unlabeled. “Might as well see what’s in here, while we’re here.” Rose said. The Doctor unlocked it with the sonic. She opened the door.

And nearly fell.

The basement floor was gone. Completely gone.

The Doctor stumbled, her foot slipping over the threshold, her arms waving in the air. Instinctively, Rose rushed out and put her arms around her waist to steady her, her heart racing as she did so. “I’ve got you!” 

The Doctor leaned back into her, and they both ended up tumbling to the cement floor. 

“Ooh, sorry about that.” The Doctor twisted herself around so she was facing Rose. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, faces inches apart. Rose looked into the Doctor’s hazel eyes, not sure what was going to happen next.

As it snapping out of a trance, the Doctor moved to get herself upright “Thanks! I would have been flat as a pancake.” Her words were upbeat here was a tinge of panic in her voice.

“Sure.” she took a hand from the Doctor to get herself up. She peered out of the doorway. “What is that?”

What was ahead of them, nearly close enough to touch, was a monstrosity of machinery. Pipes, tubes and coils in every direction. Looking further out, peeking along the sides, they could see this machinery was a small part of something larger.

“No idea. Let’s go down to the next level and get a better look.” They stepped back, and the Doctor ran down the stairs. 

\--

In the sub-basement, the Doctor stared, open-mouthed in awe.

The machine in front of them was big. Really big. Several stories tall. At the center had a large cylinder, shining steel, three meters wide, the top of it nearly touching the roof of the room. The rest of it nearly took up the entire space. More coils, compartments, levers, and gears.

When she was finally able to speak, she said. “Look at this! It’s huge! All these parts working towards a single goal. It’s beautiful, in a way.”

“Any idea what the goal is?”

“Not yet.” To the right of the cylinder was a control panel. The Doctor turned it on with the sonic and leaned over the panel, studying readouts. “Hmmm..exhaust up there, makes sense, harmonic generators…” she gasped.

“What is it?”

She looked up. “That’s a dark energy containment field. Dark energy! So hard to detect, let alone capture. And they’ve done it! Right here! They’ve used a sophisticated alloy combined with stabilizer beams.” She jumped up and down. “So elegant! I love it!” she suddenly stopped, frowning. “No, wait. This is bad. Very bad. Dark energy is the force that drives the expansion of the universe. It’s far too powerful for a civilization this immature to have. Used wrong, it could split the universe open, like the seam on too-tight trousers.”

“Causing a whole in space-time?” Rose ventured.

“Yes!”

“But what do they want to do with the dark energy? And why do they need power from the power grid if they have it?”

“Dark energy, a very tricky thing. Can’t be used in drips and drabs. And I still can’t tell exactly what this is for. I need to look around some more…” she stopped. The buzz of a drone was coming from the stairwell. “Reinforcements.” 

Before the Doctor could protest, she drew her gun and ran to the other side of the room, facing the door. The Doctor readied her sonic.

A moment later, the door slammed open, a line of drones whizzing through. Rose took out the first one, which fell to the ground. She missed the second one by a couple of inches, but the Doctor disabled it with the sonic. As she was re-aiming, another came flying through, and threw a Net towards them just as she fired. She saw orange, then felt herself being slowly lifted out the ground. She fired the pistol in a futile attempt to break the Net, but nothing happened. When the Net had rearranged itself, she could see the rest of the drones were down. The Doctor looked up at her. “Don’t worry! I’ll get you down!”

“No, you won’t.” A deep voice emerged from the stairwell. “Move and you’re dead.”

The man who stepped out had a large gun pointed directly at the Doctor. He was the platonic ideal of a security guard-large, muscular, with a bald head. He was followed by three other large, nondescript men. All of them were in navy blue uniforms.

“Oh good! Finally, a person!” She held up her hands. “I’m the Doctor. Your drones keep attacking us, and it’s very unpleasant. I’m going to leave scathing reviews of this place.”

He looked at her with a mixture of anger and confusion. “You’re not telling a soul about what happens in here.” He nodded in the Doctor’s direction. “Phil, get her.” 

\--  
Rose knew she should be struggling against the goon marching her down the hall, but his grip on her was rock solid, and she was completely exhausted.She struggled to keep up with his pace.

They’d separated her from the Doctor, and taken her into a room to be searched and interrogated. The same questions, over and over. Who are you? Who do you work for? How did you find out about the project? How did you get in?

Initially, she refused to answer any of their questions, instead yelling at them about the immediate danger downstairs. Disinterested, they kept at her, demanding to know what company she was spying from. She kept staring at the door. She couldn’t overpower the two men keeping her captive, but the Doctor would get away and save her. Barring that, Colin and Jae-Kwang would bust in. 

When what must have been hours had gone by with no signs of rescue, she did the only thing she could think of: told them her name and that she was John’s wife. It was still technically true for a few more months, anyway. She asked if she could talk to him, or if they could tell him she was here. One raised an eyebrow at her, but they did nothing except continue to berate her. She tried to think of some way to get away from them, get out of that room, but her brain was mush.

The goon stopped in front of an unmarked door. “In here.” He pushed her inside and slammed the door shut behind her. 

The first thing she saw was the Doctor, immediately jumping up from sitting on the floor. A mix of relief and disappointment filled her. The Doctor hadn’t gotten away, but at least they were together.

“Rose,” the Doctor rushed over and hugged her, nearly knocking her off her feet. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine.” She collapsed into the Doctor, burying her face in her shoulder. It felt so good to close her eyes. “Should’ve known you show up, and I get held captive.” She gave a weak laugh. At least she didn’t have to be stuck in here alone. “Find out anything?”

“One of the goons mentioned activation. In the morning. Assuming they’re going to turn that thing on, if we don’t stop them.Makes sense, with what I learned from the Time Lord I spoke with.” 

Rose tried to be optimistic. “Well, there’s the guys, right? Don’t know about your friend, but Colin’s pretty strong. He could take out at least one of the guards.”

The Doctor bit her lip. “They were both captured. I overheard them talking about it.”

Her face fell as she felt her heart sink. “Where are they? What happened to them?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Didn’t see them but the head guard mentioned them. Probably being held somewhere else. Maybe with Sameera and Luke. Anything else come up?”

“I told them who I was. I mean, who I am to John.” She thought she saw the Doctor frown slightly at the mention of him, but she continued.. “I don’t know if it was the right thing. I thought maybe they’d let me talk to him, or they’d tell him, or something.”

“Could’ve been. Mine had a phone conversation with someone they called ‘the boss’. Maybe him?” she shrugged. 

“Maybe,” Rose took a step back and surveyed the room, trying to think through her exhaustion. They were surrounded by beige walls with no windows, empty of everything except wire shelves mounted on the wall. There was a vent on the ceiling that was too small to crawl through. This was probably intended to be a storage closet. No other obvious exits. “They took the sonic screwdriver?”

“Sonic, psychic paper, Time Ring...everything. I hate empty pockets!” A full frown this time.

Rose sighed. She’d expected that-they;’d taken everything out of her pockets-but she was running out of ideas on what to do next. She leaned against the wall for support. “So now what?”

“We wait. I couldn’t see any way to escape. Don’t know when they’ll be back.”

“Or if they’ll be back. We’ve got no weapons, no tools, we’re locked in an empty room, and everyone who knows we were here has been captured!” She was usually good at keeping calm in the face of danger, but she was starting to panic.

The Doctor took her hands. “Come on now, we can’t think like that. If we have nothing else, even if the odds are impossibly stacked against us, we need to have hope.” 

“I’d rather have a plan.” 

“I’m workin’ on it.” she attempted a smile, but it faltered. 

“I know, Sorry for freaking out it’s just...a lot has happened today, with finding out John is about to destroy the planet and coming up here...” she trailed off, stifling a yawn. “Sorry, was up early this morning. 5 am yoga class.”

Concerned filled the Doctor’s eyes. “Rose, you should sleep. It’s,” she let go of Rose’s hand to put a finger in the air. “nearly midnight. You look exhausted.”

“That late? They did question us for hours.” she blinked. On one hand, she wanted to spend every moment with the Doctor that she could. But sleep sounded amazing right now, even if it was on the floor. “But what if they come back?”

“I will wake you up if anything happens. Promise. You won’t be able to do anything if you don’t rest. We know that machine isn’t being activated until the morning, and we can’t get out of here. Nothing else to do now. You should sleep,” she repeated.

From the firm tone of her voice, there was no arguing with her. Rose nodded in agreement, too tired to protest further. Once she’d slept, she’d be able to think more clearly. She took off her jacket, placing it on the ground to use as a pillow. “What about you?”

“You know me, I don’t sleep that much.” The Doctor sat next to her, cross-legged, watching her. 

“Yeah, he used to remind me of that. A lot.” She laid on the floor. The linoleum was by no means comfortable, but she’d slept in worse places. She felt overtaken by exhaustion.

“I’ll try to think of a plan to stop them.” The Doctor looked over her.. “Do you want my coat? Could use a blanket.”

“Okay. You don’t need it?”

“No, don’t get cold easily. Mostly I just like wearin’ a coat.” With one swift movement, the Doctor took off her coat and draped it over her.

“It is a nice coat. It suits you.” she murmured. The coat was warmer than she expected, and she clung to it like a security blanket. She felt bad about making fun of it earlier..that day? Spotting the burst of artron energy felt like it had happened a hundred years ago.

She closed her eyes and heard the Doctor say, “Good night, Rose.” And then she was asleep..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, only one day late! Also, I fully admit I largely BSed dark energy.
> 
> Next week: that Eventual Romance tag is going to (finally) come into play :)


	11. Chapter 11

John was sitting at the counter of his tiny kitchen drinking coffee when he was startled by the ringing of his phone.. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the call was from Hofstader. “Did something go wrong?” he immediately asked.

“Hello to you too, John.” Hofstader’s velvety voice came through the phone. “Hope I didn’t wake you. I know it’s early, but it’s important.”

“Nah, I was just getting up.” Truth be told, he’d been up for an hour, even though it was only 5am. He’d been too excited to sleep. It was Activation Day. The day when everything changed.  
It was going to be the best day of his life.

Hostader said, “A few people broke into the facility last night.”

“What?!” He raised his voice.” You assured me there’d be no breaches. That was the whole point of setting up out in the middle of nowhere!” He hadn’t spent all these months in veritable exile just to have his work ruined. When he wasn’t working, there was absolutely nothing to do out here. Nothing. No cafes, no museums, just a few pathetic shops. It was so, so, so boring. If there was a breach, he would scream at them until he was hoarse.

“It’s been dealt with.” Hofstader was unphased by his anger. “ We turned most of them over to the police already, but well, how do I put this? One of them is your wife.”

“Rose is there!? Why didn’t you call!?” He’d been certain Rose couldn’t have found out what he’d been up to. He’d kept his old phone locked away at his former flat and had the messages forwarded, so he couldn’t be tracked. He hadn’t told her or Pete anything. Thanks to the complete dearth of anything remotely interesting to do here, he’d hardly been anywhere other than the Ceylon building or his hotel suite for months. How did she find him? Must have been through Torchwood. Bloody Torchwood. 

“We didn’t want to disturb you, especially because of what’s happening today. We’re holding her. You can see her when you come in.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” He’d show her exactly she was going to miss out on. “Can you send the car early?”

“Of course. I’ll send it now. Expect it in thirty minutes.” He was staying at a hotel twenty kilometers away. Bit of a commute, but the Algernon leadership had agreed all the accommodations in Stratton were a bit dodgy. “Oh, and John, we’re holding one more person, who was found with her. Claims to be the Doctor.”

“WHAT?!?” No, now that’s impossible.” His heart was now racing, even though he knew it couldn’t be. The walls between the universes had closed years ago. There was no way for the Doctor to come back here. Or was there? Maybe he’d discovered something that allowed him to travel between universes. Well, if it was the Doctor, he could show both of them.

“I initially thought she was a fake, but the boys found some interesting technology on her. Definitely alien, extremely advanced. We could bring a DNA kit or an internal imaging scanner onsite if you’d like, to be sure..”

“Yeah, do that.” He fidgeted with his coffee mug. “Wait, did you say ‘she’?” He tried to sound merely curious. He wouldn’t let himself be rattled. Only humans got into a snit about gender changes. 

“Yes. We found them at the machine site. We’ll need you to double check to make sure nothing’s been tampered with.” There was a pause. “The big man should be there by seven. Are you ready?”

“Of course.” He made sure each syllable dripped of annoyance. ” Triple checked all the calculations last night.” Everything would work. He was certain of it. 

\--  
The Doctor sat leaning against the wall with her knees bent, looking at a sleeping Rose She’d barely taken her eyes off of her in hours.She wasn’t getting far on the escape plan. In part, because her thoughts kept wandering to Rose..

She’d tossed and turned a bit in her sleep. Her hair was a mess.

She was beautiful. 

The Doctor was good at running away from things she didn’t want to deal with. It was, perhaps, what she did best. This regeneration liked talking about her feelings more than most, but that didn’t mean she was running from some of the more troubling ones. Taking in companions, visiting new planets, even telling rambling stories, in a way they were all a form of running, of keeping her from dwelling on the things she didn’t want to think about.

Here, in the silence and stillness of their makeshift prison, hours and hours of nothing but the thoughts spinning in her head, she could not run. She could not distract herself. And if she was going to survive this, she needed to acknowledge what she’d done..

She’d told herself earlier that day, when she’d first seen Rose, it had been ages since they’d seen each other last. She’d gotten over her, moved on. Even gotten married a couple times.  
But being with her again, now,..it was as if all those years had never happened. Even being trapped and facing impending doom couldn’t entirely erase the joy in her hearts of merely being in her presence.

Watching her asleep, the Doctor longed to hold her again, one more time. But that was too dangerous, because she might never let go. She wondered if subconsciously, she’d left Rose in a parallel universe, because she’d never be able to stay away from her. There was also the matter of John. Yes, Rose had left him, but the Doctor could tell she still had feelings for him. The sadness in her expression, the resignation, the regret-it was plain as day every time she spoke of him. 

Speaking of regrets..John. The darkest parts of herself, brought to the surface. He was too much of what she’d been during the Time War, and something she never wanted to face again. The thought of keeping him aboard the TARDIS-she would have rather been tortured..

The Time Lords were right, in a way. She’d caused the hole. Her unwillingness to deal with what she had created-a love and a clone-would destroy this universe. She needed, for once, to stop running and face what she’d done. She’d do her best to make it up to him. Fix him, if it was remotely possible.

She thought of the Time Ring, wherever it had ended up. _I could take Rose with me_, but she shook her head before the thought had fully formed. If any reconciliation was possible between Rose and John, she owed it to them to try. Besides, RoseShe’d be taking Rose away from her family and the life she’d built here. It wouldn’t be good for her. It was wrong. It was _selfish_.

Whatever happened, she’d be leaving this universe alone.

She didn’t know how she’d make herself do it.

\--  
The Doctor was still sitting there, when Rose began to stir. 

“Hey,” Rose sat up and rubbed her eyes. The Doctor’s coat fell to her lap. She brushed a few locks of blonde hair from her face. “Come up with anything?” 

“Nope, sorry.” she shrugged. She gave Rose a moment to wake up before continuing. “Haven’t heard a peep out of the guards all night. It’s around six now. Imagine people will be arriving soon, for the activation.”

“Doesn’t give us much time.” She handed the Doctor her coat back. The Doctor deeply inhaled as she put it back on, trying to catch her scent. 

The Doctor thought out loud. “Bet the day shift isn’t expecting prisoners. We shout and bang on the door, see if they notice? It’s not as good as my usual plans, sorry.”

“Worth trying.” She leaned against the wall, sitting next to the Doctor. She seemed subdued, unusually quiet. Rose had never been a morning person, but the Doctor had expected her to want to jump into action. Instead, she stared at the opposite wall, almost contemplative.  
She tried to think of something positive, but she knew better than to offer Rose false reassurance. Less than two hours before Project Algernon was activated, trapped with no escape, no allies, and no weapons. 

They sat in silence for what, to the Doctor, seemed like hours, before Rose spoke again. .“It’s funny, all these times over the years where I’ve been in danger, or captured, facing death...and this is how it ends. And,..it’s my fault, isn’t it? I didn’t make him better. There must have been something I could have done. I could have been more patient, could have tried harder. I just couldn’t think of anything else I could do for him.”

“No, it’s not your fault. Look at me.” Rose turned to face her. “John had a choice about how he acted. And it sounds like you did try, for a very long time. And I know you, you never like to give up. It was way more than what I should have ever asked of you.

“If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. A metacrisis, part-human, part-Time Lord! Never existed before! Who knew what was going to happen with him, what he would be like? Nobody. Certainly not humans with limited xenological experience. No offense.” she quickly added. “ I should have kept him with me, watched over him. I shouldn’t have left him here.I shouldn’t have left either of you here.” 

She regretted saying the last part almost instantly; wondering if Rose had caught her meaning.. it had just come out, as her words tended to do. .But a smile played on Rose’s lips, which she settled into a thoughtful, serious expression. “What happens when this is all over?” Her tone was even, the words carefully calculated.

“I’ll talk to him. See what I can do. Who would be better able to help my clone but me?” She spoke quickly, carefully regarding Rose’s reaction. Her expression didn’t change. “Maybe there’s something he and I can work out. Who knows, maybe it’s possible you and he could…”

“It’s not.” Rose interrupted, firm and resolute.

The Doctor’s hearts sped up, acutely aware Rose was inches away from her. She didn’t want to hope, couldn’t let herself do so. “You don’t mean..”.

“I can’t go back to him. Too much has been said, too much has happened between us” As she talked, she reached for the Doctor’s hand, entwining their arms. The Doctor let out a tiny gasp at feeling of warm skin against her own. ” Even if he were a model husband from now on, I don’t think I’d quite accept it. I’d be waiting for him to change back.. Walking on eggshells forever.” With her other hand, she cupped the Doctor’s chin in her hand, who hoped Rose wouldn’t notice her cheeks burning. "I meant what I said before. I'm never leaving you.”

Her thoughts raced as she focused on trying to get her breathing under control. Would the respiratory bypass prevent her from hyperventilating? Not the time to find out. For once, words failed her. She was only able to whisper, “Rose.”

She closed her eyes and parted her lips, feeling Rose’s hand slowly guide her closer. This body seemed much more responsive to touch than the last one. If just a caress had her this worked up, she couldn’t imagine what it would do to her to actually _kiss_ her, to…

There was a loud noise behind her, and they broke apart, jumping back. The door opened to two burly security men, the larger of the two filling the doorframe. 

“Get up. Now.” he barked. 

“What’s going on? Did the activation happen yet?! Where are you taking us?” The Doctor demanded to know.

“You’ll see.” grunted the larger man. Addressing his partner, he nodded towards the women. “Grab them.”

\--

They were led single file down the stairs, back into the sub-basement. Back to the large machine. The Doctor tried to be optimistic. She didn’t know how long it would take to create the hole, but if she was in the same room, she had a better chance of stopping it. 

She nearly stumbled on a step. The guard was practically pushing her down. She wished she could see Rose, who was behind her. Give her a reassuring look. She’d tried twisting around to look at her in the hallway, but the guard demanded she face forward.

The machine room now sported a long table. She and Rose were led in front of it, as if on display, to the three men sitting on the other side. She could feel the presence of the guard behind her, ready to strike if she made any sudden moves. 

The first ma was, large, fifties, slicked back hair, The second, late forties, skinny, snub-nosed. He looked restless sitting there. Rose gasped. “That’s Harold Stowber,.” she whispered, nodding to the second man. Her guard shushed her.

The third man, of course, needed no introduction.

“Hello, _Doctor_.” John’s voice was ice cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all going to hate me for this chapter, aren't you? Well, just pointing out there's three more. <s>And maybe some bonus content</s>
> 
> Have a great week!
> 
> ETA 11/20: Fixed typos and punctuation errors. Sorry about that!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Belated Doctor Who anniversary and Trailer Day! I'm excited about this chapter and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Rose stared at John in shock. This was the moment she’d been dreading, and it was nothing like she’d pictured. 

He was skinnier than she remembered, if such a thing was even possible. Clean-shaven, he was wearing a navy suit. He hadn’t worn a suit since their wedding. The way he carried himself, not slack and worn down, but striding with confidence, as he walked around the Doctor in slow circles.

He looked like the Doctor. He didn’t sound like him, not by a long shot, but he definitely looked like him. And that made facing him so much harder, because she was seeing what he could have been. She felt a pang of sadness, of regret, for all the wasted years. Everything she thought she would say to him went out the window. 

But he didn’t even acknowledge her. His attention was focused solely on the Doctor.

“Well, look at you.” He studied her, looking slightly amused. “They told me you were a woman, but I wasn’t expecting someone so small. You’re tiny. Donna thought I was skinny. Compared to you, I’m the bloody Hulk. Does anybody take you seriously?” he scoffed.

Unfazed, she glared at him, jaw set. “Stop this. Now, before you destroy everything.” 

He didn’t acknowledge her. The man she didn’t recognize, the larger one, asked John, “Do you want that blood sample?”

John shook his head, but Stowber spoke up. “Hofstader, let’s get a sample after it’s done. Hair and cheek swabs too. We’ll compare the two of them by microarray. This is going to be fascinating!” he clasped his hands together.

Rose turned her attention to him. “Where are our friends?” she demanded.

“Turned over to the Stratton police.:” Hofstader answered for him. “We plan to press full charges for breaking and entering. You’ll be joining them, Ms. Tyler, but not just yet. Not before you see the world changed forever!” 

“The world isn’t going to exist if…” she started, but she stopped when she felt the barrel of the security guard’s gun in her back, silencing her. 

John strolled back to the table, where the contents of the Doctor’s pockets were neatly arranged. “Hmm, new sonic screwdriver. And ahh, look at this. A Time Ring!” He held it up to examine.” Haven’t seen one of these since that time on Skaro, when we tried to prevent the Daleks from being created! How did you get this?”

“The Time Lords,” The Doctor said.

He frowned, staring at her. “You’re lying.”

She met his gaze. “We saved them. The one that was you, actually…he led the way. Along with a future incarnation and...the one we don’t talk about. Massive multi-dimensional calculations into a pocket universe.”

“Ohhh, that’s very clever.” For a moment, he looked-and sounded-like the Doctor. Inquisitive, open, dare she say charming? Then the coldness in his eyes returned. “I’m going to have so much fun taking this apart.” 

The Doctor gasped. “Don’t do that either. I won’t have any way to get home.”

He looked at her with mock concern. “Yes, and now you know how it feels. But first things first!” He gestured to the machine with a flourish. “Shall I say it’s _time_ to get things going?” Putting the Time Ring back on the table, he started examining readings on the control panel. He worked with precision, focus. 

“John, listen to me. Whatever you do, you cannot turn this machine on.” she pleaded. “Turn everything off and step away. I don’t know what you’re going through, but this...whatever this is, it’s not the answer.”

“You’re right. You don’t know what I’m going through.“ he stopped working at the console and turned back to her. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me? What it’s like to be human? Well, of course you do, you’ve used the Chameleon Arch a couple times, but you had no idea. Ignorance is bliss!

“I hate every minute of my existence. I can’t feel the stream of time. I can’t feel the planet move. Speaking of planets, I’m stuck on one planet. One! It’s not even a particularly interesting one!”  
Stowber grimaced, looking offended. Without acknowledgment, John continued,”My brain is so _slow_, it takes me ages to figure out what I used to be able to in seconds! And I can’t do it for very long, because I have to sleep and eat and other nonsense! .And I’m aging! It’s horrible! I get back pain if I sit for too long. I have to carry paracetamol everywhere I go, in case my knees start to ache! ”he shook his head, disgusted. “I thought being the last Time Lord was lonely, but this... to be the only one of your kind, ever...you can’t even imagine.”

His expression changed, to a full on glare. “And you knew. You knew what I was. You left me here, no TARDIS, no ship of any kind. I just have to stay on this planet and rot.”

“I know.” she looked down, contrite. “I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry. Stop what you’re doing, and come with me. We’ll figure it out.” 

“Oh, no. I’m not listening to you.” He turned back to a control panel. “I’ve got something much better planned.”

“What is your plan, anyway?” Rose broke in.

He looked at her in mock surprise. “My _dear Rose_, nice of you to take an interest in me for once! If you hadn’t abandoned me, you’d know all about the project!”

She’d expected to feel guilty at that remark-it was a cycle that had played out repeatedly over the years, with him demanding more of her attention, and her never giving enough of herself. Instead, she felt anger. Pure anger. The Doctor was right; it wasn’t her fault. 

John was lucky. If the guards hadn’t taken her gun, in that moment, she would have shot him herself. 

“I’m just trying to make myself whole.” John continued. “ Thanks to the help of my associates here,” he gestured to the other men “I have a chance. It happened right after you left me, in fact. I’d lost everything I’d cared about, and they showed me my future.”

“Which is?” she asked.

His laugh was slow and bitter. “It’s thanks to you, partially. Well, you and that biologist from Torchwood, Tabitha, her name was? The one who mapped my genome after I first arrived here. Just so happens Stowber and his pals got his hands on it.”

“But how?” she asked, bewildered. “The data was all encrypted and…”

Stowber jumped up, sensing his cue. “You lot aren’t the only ones who know how to hack into computer systems, Ms. Tyler. We got everything. The report on the initial Cyberman attack with the original Doctor, all the medical and biological data. I made it a priority once I made my first billion.” He walked around the table. “It’s very interesting. Your husband here is actually a chimera. The Time Lord genomic sequences were conserved, but the sections the enhanced biology, for lack of a better term, are entirely demethylated.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What does that mean in English?” she asked.

“It means he has Time Lord DNA but it’s turned off. It’s not doing anything.” the Doctor said. “But you can’t just selectively turn on genes. There’s no way this civilization has sophisticated enough technology for that.”

“Wrong..again.” John looked at her with disgust. 

“I had a brilliant idea. Well, I have lots of those, but this was pure genius!” Stowber said. “Our original plan was to ask him to build a time machine. He couldn’t do it. But then we developed another plan. Our astronomy team had built the most sophisticated probe the world had ever seen: capable of detecting dark energy.”

“And you found it.” the Doctor interrupted.

“John was instrumental in showing us how to collect and store it. And he designed and built all this.” Stowber continued, gesturing to the machine. “Dark energy is...well, you know what it does, Doctor. Sorry, used to talking to imbeciles with normal IQs. But it can also be used to split dimensions. Including time.”

She gasped in sudden realization. “You’re going to open the Time Vortex!” 

John nodded. “Recreating the same process used to create the Time Lords in the beginning. Well, it’ll be a shorter process, since I’ve already got the genes.” He pointed to the tall cylinder in the middle of the machine. “I stand in the exposure chamber. It will activate the Time Lord genes, and I’ll be the Doctor again!” his smile was maniacal. “Two hearts, regenerations, time travel, everything!”

“But that’s not going to work! The Time Vortex is too big, too uncontrollable to open on a planet.” she protested. 

“That’s why it’s going to be attenuated. He pointed to the tall cylinder again. “It comes out here, just here.” 

“You can’t just open the Time Vortex a little bit! It doesn’t work like that! You’re going to split the universe open, you bloody sod! That’s why the Time Lords sent me. They saw what happens, and they sent me to stop you.”

His eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. “No. You just don’t like anyone else having time travel, especially someone you consider beneath you. That’s why you always take vortex manipulators away from humans. And you do consider me beneath you, don’t you? A copy. Not good enough. Is that why you left me here?”

The Doctor frowned. “It wasn’t snobbery, but cowardice.” As an aside, she said to Rose,”You know, normally when I meet my past selves, they’re more tactful than this.”

Rose addressed Stowber. “How did you ever get this past licensure? I mean, I know there’s plenty of bribing, but they’re skittish about something this risky.”

Stowber smiled. “A fully restored Doctor is our best chance against another Cybermen attack. He stopped the first one. They got everything through as fast as they could, they’re all so afraid of more metal men.”

“I sincerely doubt you’re doing this solely in the interests of national security,” she replied.

Stowber pointed at her. “Astute observation. Once he’s ready, he can build a new time machine. I can travel in time, with future knowledge of tech and the markets and world events, and wipe the floor with our competitors!”

The Doctor said, “Are you listening to him, John? Teaming up with greedy businessmen? That’s not something we would ever do.” 

“A small price to pay.” John fired back. “Once my transformation is complete, I’ll be the new CEO of Stowber Limited. I’ll be in charge, make sure they don’t go overboard. Use their money and power for good.” 

It was clear John didn’t seem to notice the only good Stowber had in mind was his own. Desperation could turn a blind eye to a lot of things.They had to get through to him, and fast.

“You can’t expose yourself to the Time Vortex as a human. Too much exposure and you’ll die. How long do you have to be in there? Hours? Days?” the Doctor asked.

“By my calculations, shouldn’t take longer than an hour. Even if it takes longer, I’m willing to take the risk. Rather die as a would be Time Lord than continue being human. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.” He turned back to the control panel, bent over, adjusting switches and settings. 

“But are you willing to take everyone with you? Kill an entire planet? An entire universe? That’s billions of people.” The Doctor said. “Do you want all that blood on your hands?” 

“I was born with blood on my hands. You said so yourself.” he didn’t look up from the control panel. 

“What about Rose?’ The Doctor pointed to her. “If this thing is activated, she’ll be among the first to die.”

“I don’t care about her.” he continued working without missing a beat.

“I think you do. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have brought her here, to watch what you’re doing.” she paused, nose scrunched in thought. “Do you remember the first time you realized you loved her?”

“I don’t have time for this…” he began, but she cut him off.

“The Sycorax ship! Christmas Day!”

He froze.

She continued. “You’d just regenerated, still sleepin’ it off. A new man, hearts open the tiniest bit for the first time after the carnage of the Time War. A spot of healing.” He turned around slowly, looking at the Doctor, as if mesmerized by her words. “You looked out of the TARDIS, out onto their ship, and there she was, taking on an alien race all by herself! No army, no weapons, no tech, didn’t even have the TARDIS since it wasn’t working. Just this ordinary human girl, yelling at the Sycorax, demanding they leave!” She turned to Rose, transfixed on her face.” That’s when you knew. She was clever, persistent, courageous...and it was impossible for us not to love her.” 

Rose watched the Doctor,her captivated by her words as John was. Despite the danger all around them, her heart was filled with joy. He’d never told her this before. Neither of them had. 

John interrupted her thoughts. “I did. I do. But she let me down.” He looked at Rose “You weren’t there when I needed you.“

He was blaming her for his behavior, still blaming her, even after she was gone from his life. She felt no guilt, possibly, for the first time, She couldn’t believe how she hadn’t seen him more clearly before. “Are you daft? I spent years trying to help you! I did everything you asked! I rearranged my whole life!” Years of rage blasted from her like a fire hose.”I didn’t abandon you. You made it impossible for me to stay. And look at you now, you’re acting like a cartoon villain, and somehow it’s my fault?”

“Rose did extraordinary things to help you.” the Doctor added. “But what did you do to help yourself? You’re angry about being left here, I get that! You should be! But you could have found so many different ways to deal with it. Taken up football, or mediation. Those video games where you shoot people. Ryan and Yaz love those.” she stopped herself from grinning. “The point is, she deserved better.”

John gasped. “Rose...wait. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed, “This isn’t about me or what I’ve been doing at all. That whole bit about destroying the universe, that’s rubbish isn’t it?”

“It’s not, Trust me, it’s not…” the Doctor began, but John wouldn’t let her finish.

“You came back for _her_. You could never stay away from her. Trust me, I know. You must have begged the Time Lords to send you here. And she wants you instead, not me. I was always a second choice, wasn’t I?” He glared at Rose. 

She looked back and forth between them, carefully deliberating her words. She knew, many times over, saying the wrong thing would send him over the edge. “It wasn’t like that. I promise. But…”

“That’s what I thought.” he snapped, turning back to the control panel. He turned a dial, and the cylinder opened, revealing the inner chamber. He trotted up the three steps and stood inside, his lanky frame filling its height. “Harry, do the honors?”

“With pleasure.” Stowber positioned himself in front of the control panel.

“No, no, no, you can’t…” The Doctor took a step towards him, but was grabbed from behind by the guard. She struggled against him, but his grip was too tight.

At the same time Rose felt her guard grasp her shoulders, leaving her immobile. Adrenaline and horror coursed through her. Something was going to happen, had to happen, to stop him. 

“Are all the readings in range?” John asked. Stowber nodded. “Press the large red button towards the bottom. That will release the dark energy.” He gave a genuine grin, his first since they’d seen from him. “_Allons-y!_” 

Stowber pressed the button.

The earth shook violently beneath them.


	13. Chapter 13

The opening of the Vortex had sent vibrations shooting through the Earth’s crust. They’d all been thrown to the ground by the shaking-all except John, who was still inside the chamber. 

The air was filled with groans of pain, alert klaxons, and a single, loud persistent scream. 

John was screaming.

Aching from the fall, the Doctor looked at the guard who had been holding her. He was sprawled out clutching his hands to his stomach. She jumped to her feet. He grabbed for her ankle in a futile gesture; she easily stepped around him. She moved as quickly as she could while maintaining her balance on the shaky ground, avoiding the cracks forming in on the concrete floor. She scooped up the sonic and the Time Ring off the table and shoved them in her pocket before examining the Vortex machine,

The Time Vortex was coming through, but it was much stronger, much larger, than any of its builders had intended. Just as she’d told them. But saying saying she told them so wouldn’t do any good. It would only be a matter of moments before the situation became much, much worse.

She took a quick glance around the room. Rose was up. She’d grabbed the gun from the guard who’d been holding her and was pointing it at him and his partner, yelling at them to stay down. 

Stowber had managed to get upright and was frantically pushing buttons at the control panel. “John, what did you do? This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

The Doctor shouted over the noise as she nearly body checked him to get to the control panel. She looked at the readouts. “It’s happening, just like I told you! The entire Time Vortex is coming through this room. It’s too big! It’s going to split the universe open! We need to stop it!” 

“Can you stop it?” he was almost as pale as John.

“I need to shut down the stream of dark energy feeding into the main power relay.” She turned back to the control panel. John was still screaming, primal and painful. Every cell in his body was being blasted with vortex energy, disintegrating, collapsing. She’d been in the Time Vortex unprotected before; few things were more painful. The dormant Time Lord genes would protect him, but not for long. She hoped it was long enough to get him out of there. 

Stowber hand managed to get to the front of the chamber. He was berating John.“You idiot! You’ve ruined the project! We’re starting all over, after we sue you for property damage, breach of contract…”

“Oh, shut up! Asset damage is the least of your problems!!” she snapped at him. She glanced over. “John, can you try to get out?”

John stopped screaming, and shook his head. His limbs were splayed out, frozen in place. HIs face was contorted in a ghastly grimace.

“The Time Vortex is holding him in place. Tremendously strong.” she explained. “ Don’t think we’ll be able to get him out until we turn off the Vortex.”

“Can’t you just pull him out?” Stowber shouted.

“Did you hear a word I just said?! No!” So much for being a genius. Turning her attention back to the control panel, she entered the final set of commands for shutdown. She breathed a small sigh of relief when “Initiating shutdown sequence” appeared. The warning klaxons went abruptly silent, the hum of the machinery stopped.

But the Vortex was still coming through the chamber. With John still in it. He looked deathly white. 

The ground shook harder. She grabbed onto the control panel, hanging on for dear life. A loud creaking noise filled the room. 

A black, impossibly black line appeared at the base of the Vortex chamber.Thin as a shoestring at first, then expanding. 

_The hole._

The rate of expansion was increasing, rapidly becoming the thickness of a tyre. Spreading longer, in either direction.

“Stowber, get back!” she cried. She ran from the control panel, turning around to see the CEO turn around, then stumble on the still shaking ground. He teetered on a broken piece of concrete, his eyes wide with panic.

Then fell backwards into the sliver without a sound. 

She looked around to discover with horror she and John were alone in the machine room. Where was Hofstader? Where were the guards? Where was Rose? If they’d hurt her even the tiniest bit…

“Doctor!” Rose came running back into the machine room, grabbing the wall to keep herself upright. “Had to duck out. Locked the guards in the closet we were in.”

The Doctor ignored the burning of her ears burning at the mention of the closet. No time for embarrassment. “The hole! It got Stowber!”

Rose looked alarmed. “Are we too late?”

“Almost. It’s still small, it can heal itself. Happens all the time. But we have to get the Vortex Chamber closed.” They ran as close as they dared to the expanding hole, spreading like a slow moving ink stain on the ground, holding an arm out to keep Rose from getting too close.. She waved her sonic at the vortex chamber, but nothing happened.

“It won’t close with him in it!” the Doctor cried. “And he’s stuck in there! The Vortex is gripping onto him!”

“Oh my God…he’s so…” Rose looked at him, her face a mixture of anguish and worry. Then she turned to the Doctor, determined. “What could let him go? If only we had the TARDIS, you could traverse the Vortex, right?”

A hundred things went through the Doctor’s head at once. Excitement. Regret. Sorrow.

She knew what she had to do.

She didn’t like it, but she didn’t see another choice.

It was risky, incredibly risky, but if she made it to the Vortex chamber, she had a good shot at succeeding. And there was no time. Absolutely no time to explain, argue, or defend it. The hole was getting larger by the second.

“Rose, you’re brilliant!” she forced a smile as clasped the sonic in Rose’s hands. “Point this at the chamber and keep firing until it closes.”

She stared at the sonic in confuison. “What are you going to do?”

She locked eyes with Rose, studying her for as long as she dared. ’“Hope.”

The Doctor jogged to the back of the room to get a good running start. It was just like the crane, she told herself. She grabbed for the Time Ring and ran towards the hole, as fast as she could, trying to find even ground. As she ran, she thought:

_I wish I still had longer legs._

_At least it won’t hurt if I fall._

_I’m sorry, Rose. I am so, so sorry I have to do this to you again. But we’re running out of time, and I need to stop the hole. I need to save him._

She reached the edge of the hole, and jumped, sailing through the air…

Her toes landed on the second step of the chamber. She put her arms out for balance, leaning forward slightly. As, she steadied herself on the step, she could feel the Vortex energy. Hot, like a too hot bath. It would be orders of magnitude worse inside.

John was directly in front of her, suspended upright. His skin had a deathly pall, and his eyes widened in surprise. She was surprised he registered her presence at all; she’d thought he’d be unconscious. She drew a breath, preparing herself, and stepped into the Vortex.

She was burning cold all over, in every part of her body. Her limbs were stiffening. Her head pounded. She heard screaming and belatedly realized it was her own. With a great effort, she circled an arm around John’s waist, facing him. She fumbled the Time Ring with stiff fingers, willing herself not to drop it. She couldn’t move her head to see it, so she felt for the return button. She didn’t want to think about how big the hole had gotten if it was too late…

And she felt the smooth rectangle of the button, pressed as hard as she could, and they both disappeared. 

\--  
Rose barely felt the sonic in her hand as she shut it off. The Time Vortex had vanished almost immediately after the Doctor and John did. The hole, only a few meters from her feet, was receding, leaving a trench among the broken concrete. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, getting smaller, as if being sopped up by a slow-acting sponge. 

She knew what she should be feeling. Relief. Anger. Grief. But at the moment, all she experienced was an overwhelming numbness.

The Doctor had done it. 

She had saved the world.

She was gone.

John was gone.

She should have been moving. Looking for her confiscated phone and gun. Calling the Stratton police to get everyone out of jail. Looking for Hofstader. She’d seen him take off while she was dealing with the guards, saving his own ass. Examining the building for structural damage.

Instead, she stood in place as if held by the Vortex herself, and watched as the hole receded into nothing.


	14. Chapter 14

Rose was grateful there was far too much for her to do to dwell on the Doctor in the weeks that followed.

Dealing with the usual coverup from the public. The official story, issued by their sympathetic contacts in the press and aided by video footage from Sameera’s phone, was that Ceylon was building a new type of security drone, and they’d turned deadly against their makers. Stowber Limited was in chaos, with MPs demanding full investigations. A little good came out of it; Parliament had declared a temporary moratorium on SecDrones of all types until their safety could be re-established. 

Fending off a flurry of seismologists, both domestic and international, who were highly interested in how a 6.5 earthquake happened in Northern England. 

Working with the Torchwood team to figure out how to safely dispose of the remaining dark energy. It was remaining in the Vortex machine until they determined what to do with it.

Debriefing with Jae-Kwang and Luke. She’d persuaded Colin not to erase their memories, assuring him they’d keep quiet. They were going to continue working with Strongarm, to get the Tech Reg act overturned.

Calling Mum and Dad and telling them what happened. After reassuring them repeatedly she was all right, they told her how sorry they were. Did she want to come visit them on holiday for a bit? Get away from everything? No, she said. She’d prefer to stay in England right now. 

She knew eventually the workload would lessen, she’d have to face her feelings. It would be unpleasant, but not nearly as bad as it had been before. She was no longer the love-struck teenager she’d been after the Battle of Canary Wharf, where she felt like she could barely summon the energy to get out of bed. She’d been through this now, a couple of times. She’d grieve, and then she’d go on with her life, the way she had when she’d left John. 

But there was something else keeping the sorrow at bay. She believed the Doctor would come back.

_Hope_. The last thing she’d said before jumping into the Vortex chamber. Hope, even in the face of impossible odds. Not “goodbye” or “I’m sorry” or a proper “I love you”, but she’d chosen to say hope instead. It was the reason Rose hadn’t gone on holiday to Switzerland. The Time Lords could facilitate travel between universes. Maybe they would allow her another trip. Just one more. That’s all she was asking. 

She increased the sensitivity of the artron energy detectors at work. If the Doctor landed anywhere in England, possibly anywhere in Europe, she’d know. Unfortunately, so far she’d only yielded a lot of noise. She considered asking to put monitoring equipment at _Darlig Ulv Stranden_, just in case. 

When she walked through the streets of London, she scanned the crowd, looking for a woman in a long grey coat.

At home, she held the sonic, turning it over in her hands. The Doctor never went anywhere without her sonic, right? She’d have to come back for it. Unless it was something left behind for her. 

She’d gone out for drinks with Colin and Sameera shortly after the incident, in a rare moment to breathe. It was a ratty old pub with beat up stools and very few patrons.

“Are you mad at her?” Colin asked. “For you leaving you again, and all.” He’d heard a number of rants in her early days about being trapped in the universe.

“No,” she said simply. “She did what she needed to do.” There hadn’t been a lot of time, mere moments to stop the hole, and the Doctor made the best decision she could. She’d barely made the jump across the hole. If she’d waited even a few more seconds, she wouldn’t have made it. What was the alternative, take Rose away with the Time Ring, and let the hole consume the universe? That wasn’t who she was. That wasn’t who either of them were.

“You miss her?” Sameera asked, for once not teasing.

“Yeah,” she said, idly fidgeting with a stray coaster. “Both of them, actually.” She had loved them both. And despite everything that happened, she hoped the Doctor had been able to save John. He hadn’t asked to be created, or to be what he was. She hoped he could find some peace.

Putting down his pint, Colin looked her in the eye. “He was a spectre over your head. Even when you left him, you were still worrying about him, keeping an eye on him from afar” He put a comforting hand on her shoulder.” It’s okay to let go, Rose. You’re free.”

He was right, but he was also wrong. It was okay to let go. But she wasn’t ready to give up hope. Not yet. 

\--

It was a Saturday, almost a month after the hole, that the TARDIS appeared in Rose’s living room.

She was taking a rare full day off from work, sitting at her kitchen table, sipping her tea. She’d had ambitious plans to clean her flat-she’d barely been home lately-but it was nearly eleven AM and she hadn’t made any progress. Was it really so bad if she binge watched Netflix all day instead? 

She was putting her teacup in the sink when she heard a sound, a straining groan, she hadn’t heard in many years .It was in her living room and getting louder. Her heart skipped a beat.

The TARDIS.

She ran into the living room to see the blue box fade into existence. The Doctor immediately stepped out, and she burst into a grin. 

“Rose!” Before she knew it, the Doctor was hugging her so tight she could barely breathe. “Glad I got it right this time. Followed the sonic’s signal, but I ended up in the wrong flat the first time. Landed right in the middle of a Girl Guides meeting.” She stepped back, letting her hands fall to her sides. “By the way, don’t suppose I can get that back?” 

Hesitant to step away, as if she’d disappear again, Rose let go and retrieved the sonic from her end table. 

“Thank you.” the Doctor slipped it into her pocket. “I’m so sorry I had to run out like that. I didn’t want to.”

“I know.” she replied, nodding in understanding. “What happened? After you left”

“The Time Ring took us directly back to Gallifrey, and The Time Lord who sent me wanted an extensive explanation of everything. Took ages. Would have been back much sooner otherwise.Then I had to go home and get the TARDIS.”

No wonder she had been gone so long. She needed to ask, but was afraid of the answer. “John..” .

“He’s okay!” the Doctor gave a reassuringsmile. “He was in a bad state when we arrived, brain nearly fried, but the Time Lords repaired most the damage. He’s still got a ways to go until he’s completely better, but he’s expected to recover from the Vortex exposure.

“They’ve been talking to him about his experience. A human-Time Lord chimera, nothing like they’ve ever seen. They’re fascinated! And he in turn has taken an interest in working at the science institute that sent me. We talked a lot. He’s excited to be on Gallifrey. Helps him feel closer to the Time Lord part of himself. Feels like he’s home there.” Her animated expression suddenly turned serious. “Rose, he’s not coming back here. He can’t, for a lot of reasons. But he asked me to tell you he’s sorry. For all the hurt he caused you.”

She held the Doctor’s gaze, contemplating what she’d been told. Finally she said “I’m sorry, too.” Not sorry for leaving him, but sorry that his existence here had been so difficult. That their love had not been enough. 

But that was the past, and the future was here, standing in front of her.

“And the Time Lords agreed to send you back here.”

“Well, not so much as sent, as I had to beg, plead, and threaten them. Which also took some time. Went to the High Council over it.” she admitted, and pushed a lock of hair off Rose’s face, letting her hand rest on her cheek. A chill went down her spine.”But it was worth it.”

She knew the answer already, but she wanted to hear it. “What you said that day, about...about what happened on the Sycorax ship,” she said, feeling a bit shy. “Was it true?”

“Every word.” The Doctor held her gaze, stroking her face. “Y’know, I was actually terrified afterwards, when we were standing in the ashes of the ship. Remember how you thought it was snow? Anyway, I was so worried that you wouldn’t want to come with me. Tried to play it cool…but if you hadn’t” her voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “I would have been devastated.”

Her heart was thumping in her chest as she settled her hands around the Doctor’s narrow waist. “I would have never stopped traveling with you.” 

“And I will never leave you behind again,” The Doctor said, and kissed her.

She found herself in sensory overload, the taste of the Doctor on her lips, the feel of her hands caressing her hair. She found herself clutching on to her hips, afraid she’d collapse if she let go.

After what was far too short a time, the Doctor stopped. “Almost forgot! While I’m here, I need to get the dark energy off this planet. Told the Time Lords I would. Don’t want someone pokin’ around with it when they’re not supposed to.”

She tried not to look disappointed “Can it wait?” she asked.

“Oh, definitely,” the Doctor replied, and kissed her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first envisioned this story, I had this planned as the last chapter. After further, more recent contemplation, I've added an epilogue, which involves the Doctor taking Rose to meet the fam. That will be posted tomorrow night (EST).
> 
> I had the idea for this story after re-watching "Journey's End" earlier in the year. When this episode first aired back in 2008 I thought "That's a really good ending for Rose!". Now, over ten years later, older and wiser, I think it's...not such a good ending. Ten doesn't ask her to fix Tentoo, he tells her to. Expects her to. And she's clearly reluctant at first. And it's reflective of the pervasiveness in contemporary culture that for women are expected to perform unpaid emotional labor, often for men. I realize TPTB at DW didn't intend it that way. They needed a quick way to write Billie out again, and they're under time constraints, but I bet that wasn't even on their radar. 
> 
> The takeaway from this should not be Ten and RTD and the entire DW production crew are raging misogynists.The Doctor should be flawed. They should be complicated, and contradictory. But this is a flaw the show did not call them out on and I haven't seen a lot of people discussing. And it's worth talking about.
> 
> (Ngl, it also gave me an excuse to pair Rose with Thirteen :) 
> 
> Anyway, I received so many kudos and lovely comments on this story, and I appreciate them all. Thank you for reading!


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't planning on having the fam back after Chapter 3, but it occurred to me the Doctor just took off and left them hanging. So I needed to give them some resolution. It's a little inspired by the Series 12 trailer.

The TARDIS was gone. Graham was sure of it.

In the days since the Doctor left, he would go into the backyard and feel a buzzing. No, that wasn’t quite the right word-there was no word to describe the strange feeling in his chest- but the best way to describe it. Ryan had felt it too, so he knew he wasn’t crazy.

At first, he’d gotten worried when he had looked all around the yard, but he couldn’t see the blue box. He knew roughly where the Doctor had parked it-just outside the back door, near his garden. He didn’t let her park in the living room any more after what happened to his chair. Every time he worried she was going to appear a few feet in the wrong direction and smash its contents, even though the perennials were already gone for the season. 

But for some reason, he couldn’t look right in that spot. Or if he did, he got the overwhelming urge to look away, as if he were looking at something disgusting. He couldn’t see the TARDIS, but he kept feeling the buzzing. She’d said something about a perception whatsit, but she hadn’t explained it. As usual. 

Then one day, after many weeks, he’d stepped into the backyard and felt nothing. No buzzing. Gone. Was the Doctor all right? If the TARDIS was gone, did that mean she was gone too? He knew, of course, they couldn’t travel with her forever. They all had lives to get back to on Earth. 

He just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. 

Yaz stopped by from time to time, to see how they were doing. “I’m sure she’s fine. She’ll come back.” she sat in their kitchen, leaning back in her chair. She wouldn’t leave us without saying goodbye, would she?”

“The day she left, she seemed in a big hurry to be off. And she hardly told us anything.” Ryan replied, sullen. He was taking it terribly hard, Graham had noticed. Probably reminded him too much of what had happened with his dad. “She said it would be a few days, and it’s been over a month.”

“I wish we could have gone with her,” she said for the hundredth time. 

“She’s probably all right, Yaz. Look at all the times she walked right into danger,” Graham said, trying not to let too much doubt creep into his voice.

“She’s fine.” Yaz looked out the back window, as if she expected to see the Doctor at any moment. “I know it.”

\--

The Doctor’s hand was curled around the console lever. They’d come back into her universe, she had the coordinates for Graham’s house entered, and she was just about to materialize. But she couldn’t quite make herself do it. Her stomach tightened at the thought.

She looked up at Rose, who was standing across the console from her, looking up. She was still taking in the most recent TARDIS interior. Over the past few days, she’d been running her hands over the crystal pillars, examining the console, exploring the rooms. Getting to know the ship again, just as it was getting to know her again. 

“You know,” the Doctor pasted on a plastic smile. “We don’t have to go back straight away. We could make a bit of a side trip.”

Rose jerked her head, snapped out of her perusal by surprise. “I thought you wanted to get back to your friends. You’ve been talking about them nonstop. Besides, they must be worried sick about you. How long has it been for them?”

“Couple months maybe?” the Doctor shrugged. She tried to sound cheery. “But it’s a time machine, We could go anywhere, for any length of time we like, and still come back, without missing a thing. Take a holiday. Just us. Without family interference.”

After dismantling Project Algernon and returning the dark energy to space, they’d taken a couple days in Zurich to visit Rose’s family. Her mum had spent most of it parading women’s suits in front of the Doctor in an unsuccessful bid to get her to try a different outfit. 

“Anyway,” the Doctor continued. “There are so many things I want to show you. I mean, there always has been, but I’ve seen a lot more since we were together last. The moons of Allindor, absolutely beautiful. 30th century Paris!” 

Rose walked slowly around the console until she was directly facing the Doctor. ”You’re rambling because you’re nervous, aren’t you?”

The Doctor scoffed. “I’m not nervous.” 

“Yes, you are!” She pointed to the controls. “Look at how tightly you’re gripping that lever. Your hand’s turned white.”

She hadn’t even noticed. She quickly flung her hand away.from the lever, out of view. “This regeneration happens to have pale skin!”

The truth was, she was a little nervous. Somewhat nervous. Almost very nervous. Not that she wanted to admit that to Rose. She was no stranger aboard the TARDIS, but the Doctor still liked to impress her.

Rose put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “ I would love to take a holiday with you. But I don’t think that’s what you’re after. What is it?”

“Oh,nothing important.” she wouldn’t meet her eyes. Rose’s astuteness, one of the qualities she loved, had not worked in her favor this time. “Just...you know...the thing we talked about before. In Stratton.” 

It took Rose a moment to remember. “Oh, right. You’re worried about what they’ll think of what happened? Of us?”

It had been easy, before, for the Doctor not reveal her past. She’d disclosed a few bits, here and there. Ryan had asked her about where she’d come from, and she’d explained she was a Time Lord, the last one in this universe. They’d asked her, at different times, how often she’d been to Earth, and she’d given vague answers.She hadn’t talked about the Time War, the companions that had come before them. 

But with Rose here, there was no escaping from it. There was no getting around explaining what had happened. Even now, the hole prevented, her clone living on Gallifrey, her mistakes still gnawed at her, and she felt awful about all of them. What would they think? About how she’d left the woman she loved in another universe? About her genocidal clone? Would they send her away in disgust? 

“Yeah,” she stared at the floor. “Don’t know why it matters so much, this time around.”

“Doctor,”Rose drew her close.”It’s going to be fine. If anything, it should be me who’s nervous about meeting the ‘fam’.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Remember how I was when I met Sarah Jane? I acted like a real tosser.” She shook her head at the memory.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” the Doctor stroked her hair. “They’re going to love you-almost as much as I do.” 

“So-we’ll see them?” she smiled.

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath, and reached for the lever.

It would probably be fine, she told herself. The fam did like her an awful lot, and everybody made mistakes.

Rose said it would be fine.

Why didn’t it feel like it was going to be fine? 

She double checked the coordinates one more time, more of a stalling tactic than for accuracy, and pulled. The TARDIS, groaned and wheezed, settling into its usual spot in Graham’s backyard. She felt an a sense of comfort, an easement in her tension. A feeling of home. Was that the TARDIS telepathic link, or was that her? It was hard to tell sometimes. There was no going back now. So she acted the way she always did when going into a perilous situation: act brave.

“Here we are!” she announced with her usual flourish, “Sheffield, late 2019 and..”she took a closer look at the coordinates. “It’s almost tea time. Brilliant!” 

“Anything I should know about? I mean, has this Earth changed a lot since I was gone?” Rose asked.

“Oh, it’s not too different from yours, actually, minus all the security things,” the Doctor was eager to spout off some trivia as a form of self-distraction. “Let’s see, there’s been a mess of alien invasions, two royal weddings, and a lovely cartoon called Peppa Pig!”

Rose took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Are you ready?”

She considered forcing a smile, but ended up looking grim. “Yeah, As I’m gonna be.”

They headed to the door, and the Doctor opened it to Graham, staring in astonishment, his hand raised about to knock.

“Graham, hi.”. She said softly, smiling. It was good to see him. 

“Doc,” he hesitated, searching for the words. “It’s...I can’t believe you’re here. We didn’t know…”

“Yeah, um, sorry about that. Would have called, but lost my phone in the other universe.”

His eyes widened. “Other universe? Is that where you went?”

“I’ll tell you over tea. Is Ryan around?”

“He’s out with some mates. I texted him and Yaz as soon as I heard the TARDIS.” As if snapping out of a trance, it finally registered with him the Doctor had another passenger. “Who is this?”

The Doctor wasn’t even sure where to begin, but fortunately, she didn’t have to. ““Hi, Graham, I”m Rose. The Doctor has told me so much about you.” 

He glanced down at their joined hands, and then back up again, and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you,” 

They shook hands. It wasn’ t until then the Doctor realized he was shivering. He wasn’t wearing a coat; he must have run out into the yard as soon as they landed. She asked, “Want to come in? “

\--  
Ryan and Yaz arrived shortly after they’d gone inside. They were all sitting in the TARDIS parlor,having tea and biscuits. Rose had introduced herself to each of them, and they’d been welcoming, but also shooting curious glances at the Doctor. Who was this woman, and how was she and the Doctor so familiar with each other? They whispered to each other as she sat next to the Doctor on the couch.

“I suppose you’re all wondering where I’ve been,” the Doctor said once they were all settled in. She tapped her foot, full of nervous energy. Rose gave her a reassuring look. “It’s a long story….”  
“They all are,” Graham interrupted.

“Excuse me, Graham! I’m talking!” she retorted, but with a smile. “But this story starts.” she reached down and lifted Rose’s hand, entwining their fingers “with a hand.”

And she took a deep breath, and told them.

About a hand, grabbed in the basement of a department store, whose owner was told to run.

A hand, made of plastic, reaching through the mail slot at a council estate flat.

A hand, severed by a Sycorax sword, fallen to Earth, after an ordinary but brave girl tried to stop them.

A hand that grew into another person, embodying the promise of what could have been, what she’d hoped to give fulfillment but had brought despair, sorrow, and nearly total destruction. A hand she’d run away from. 

A hand, reaching out, spanning the centuries and universes, taking hers in a Tube Station as if nothing between them had changed. Bringing them back together again. 

The Doctor watched the fam’s faces as she talked. They briefly looked disgusted by the mention of her hand being chopped off, but otherwise they alternated between surprise and concern.

When she finished, everyone was quiet for a moment. The silence weighed heavily on the Doctor, who wondered what they were thinking. She was eager to fill the silence with something. Anything. Maybe a fun anecdote. 

But before she could say anything, Graham spoke first. “Doc...I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

It wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. She sat in stunned silence.

“You gave up someone you loved. That must have been so hard.” Yaz turned away. Was she _crying?_

“It was very hard.” she said. “But that’s how it is sometimes. Whatever I do, you know, I try to do my best, but I don’t always get it right.”

“Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?” Ryan asked. There was a slight edge to his voice. “I mean, we’ve spent months with you and we’ve barely heard anything about who you are.”

“Didn’t want to be a burden, I suppose.” she stared down at the rug. “I’ve been through…a lot. More than you can ever imagine. I do my best, I really try, but sometimes, more than sometimes, everything goes wrong. Not an easy thing to live with.” 

Graham put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s no burden, Doc. Really.”

Looking up, she saw Yaz and Ryan nodding in agreement. A weight she hadn’t even realized she was carrying lifted off her shoulders. She didn’t have to keep things from the fam. She wasn’t ready to tell them everything yet. The Time War, the siege of Trenzalore, the others she’d loved and lost...maybe someday. But not today.

Feeling giddy, she put on her biggest smile. “So, fam! Where should we all go next?”

Ryan smiled back. “You still owe us a trip to the beach.”

“Doctor, weren’t you saying something about a holiday?” Rose asked. “I know just the place. Do you remember that planet we went to, that one time, where the ocean was pink?”

“No way!” Ryan’s eyes widened. “What was it like?”

Rose told them about the pink ocean, and the fam started asking about their other adventures, about her life in the parallel universe. She answered their questions eagerly, every so often looking back at the Doctor and grinning. 

And the Doctor couldn’t quite place what she was feeling at first, but realized it was something she hadn’t felt in a long time: _content_

The Doctor, Rose, and the fam in the TARDIS.

As it should be.


End file.
